


Loki's Punishment

by Dillian



Series: Cruelty has Consequences [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: BDSM, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, M/M, Master/Slave, Multi, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-18 13:13:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 12
Words: 22,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21861397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dillian/pseuds/Dillian
Summary: The prompt:  "I want to read stories where Loki has to be the Avengers slave..."  Peer pressure was mentioned, and dark threesomes where Loki's always the victim. I was looking for the premise for a story like this.  Now I have it, so here goes.Original prompt included the possibility of our heroes later finding out that Loki didn't act on his own during the invasion.  I think that's going to happen in this story.  If I can make it work.
Relationships: Fandral/Hogun/Loki/Thor/Volstagg (Marvel), Jarvis (Iron Man movies)/Loki, Loki/Thor (Marvel), Loki/Volstagg, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Series: Cruelty has Consequences [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1660222
Comments: 68
Kudos: 93





	1. Volstagg Punishes Loki

**[Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe** **  
****Characters: Odin, Thor, Loki, Fandral, Volstagg, Hogun, Sif, Tony Stark, Pepper Potts** **  
****Author’s note: This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material profit.]**

“It is my duty Thor,” Volstagg said. “Didn’t your father tell us we must break him?” Even Hogun was growing horrified at that point, and as for Fandral, he seemed near collapse himself. All of them knew this was a normal punishment for treason and yet knowing was not the same as enacting it on one who had been a friend… a brother.

Most of them would have been happy following the letter rather than the spirit of the law. “He’ll clean the stables.” This was Hogun, on the day All-Father gave Loki into their hands. There was a little smile on his face as he said it. All of them shared his pleasure that day, at the chance to punish the Mischief-Maker for so many past actions.

Loki for his part, was arrogant, snide. His tongue could not be stopped, there were so many nasty remarks. Then when Volstagg was goaded to hit him, it was one of his illusions, and he laughed until Thor hit him himself.

After that… That was the first time. “He must be taught to obey.” Volstagg looked at Thor, and there was an expression of pity on his face. “He’s your brother I know,” the big warrior said, “or as good as your brother. Let us do it, you may abstain.”

That time, Thor did not abstain. The memory of his brother’s cruelty on Midgard was still fresh, as were the echoes of his unrepentant performance in front of All-Father. “No Volstagg, you’re right,” he said. “Loki deserves this.”

It was not an act of sex, but of humiliation. Almost, it was an act of kindness. There have been criminals aplenty in the past, who have cast aside their rebellious arrogance and became again good citizens of Asgard. Volstagg and Hogun held him. “I’ll go first,” Volstagg had offered, but, “No,” Thor returned. As heir to All-Father’s throne, this was his duty. He ungirt and dropped his breeches. All the while his brother could not be quiet, but kept throwing taunts and insults until finally Thor was driven to hit him again.

Loki’s own breeches were already down, his tunic up. His buttocks were white and skinny. Thor’s mind was filled for a moment with all the other times he’d seen his brother naked, but he pushed the thoughts aside. Loki’s deeds were such that he deserved punishment, and nothing would be helped by delaying that. Taking hold of those buttocks, which felt wasted and almost devoid of flesh, Thor parted them. He would have entered slowly, but upon feeling the first touch of his member against his own back opening, Loki let loose such a shower of abuse that Thor could not hold his patience, and entered hard, one thrust against the tightness inside his brother’s fundament, and then a second to part it and enter fully.

He gave it to Loki that time, along with all of his friends. They did it again a few more times, of course working him hard at common tasks as well, as is suitable during such a punishment. No matter what was devised though, Loki refused to break, as though in this too, he must compete with his brother. First Sif gave up. “Call me a weak woman,” she said. “I dare you.” Still holding the device she’d used for penetrating Loki, she looked around challengingly, but none of them spoke. All of them were feeling similar emotions. “If we just didn’t know him,” Sif said. She threw the device toward Fandral, who was the one who’d obtained it for her in the first place. Seeing it coming his way, the golden-haired warrior shrank back. Fandral has never given voice to any qualms himself, but after this, they have shown on his face more and more.

Hogun was the second to refuse further duty. “Don’t ask it of me Thor.” As always, his words were few, but well-chosen. “There is that in my heart that stops me from giving him what he deserves.”

How well Thor understands his friend’s words! Hogun expressed the emotion that was in all of their hearts, though they have attempted to continue since his defection. Every time, the pain is worse… His pain, his heart-pain, for Loki himself has rapidly grown inured to their treatment. And when he looks at Fandral, he sees that same pain upon his face, but Volstagg still continues with undiminished enthusiasm.

Volstagg, if anything, grows more enthusiastic. He gives Loki the same orders all of them do, “Clean the stables, polish my boots, empty the slop-buckets,” but more and more it seems he is finding excuses to declare the work insufficient, and mandate further punishment. And Loki will submit without demur, but that’s not good enough for the big warrior, who will find fault with his expression, or the look in his eyes.

“You dare cross me?” A blow will always follow. “You would question All-Father’s chosen punishment?”

_Once_ , Loki responded. A frightened-sounding no… It was one of Loki’s tricks. Lord knows, such deceptions are typical of him, and yet…

It was after that _no_ , that was when Thor communicated again with his Midgardian friends. Friend Steve and Friend Bruce could not do this job without escaping detection, and by no means did Thor want Nicholas Fury, whose loyalties seem divided in some way, to know of Loki’s presence in Midgard. Friend Tony though, has a huge house in a remote location overlooking the sea. His home is guarded, Thor finds, by many of his robotic, armored creations. If Tony will agree, he can finish Loki’s punishment. And Tony has a good heart, though he does not like showing it. Thor resolves to visit him and make an appeal.

__________________________

It’s one of those rainy days that always seem to make Tony even moodier than usual. Pepper wakes up. It’s the sound of the rain against the windows that wakes her, rather than JARVIS’ usual greeting for Tony.

“He’s up already, isn’t she?” she asks the AI.

“ _Already_ , Ms. Potts, would imply that he’s been to bed.”

Tony’s downstairs again, building more of the endless parade of new suits he can’t seem to stop building. He’s always had these dark moods, but since his near death during the Battle of New York, it seems like they’re worse, and they come more often. If he’s not distracted, he’s going to be down there for days, building the machinery that’s a substitute for the protections he can’t seem to find in his own mind.

“Call Happy please,” Pepper directs JARVIS. “Tell him I won’t be in the office today.”

“Right away Ms. Potts. Anything else?”

The _anything else_ , is several more phone calls. There are purchases to be made. It is December after all, though you wouldn’t know from looking at their house. JARVIS arranges delivery of a tree, and several boxes of decorations. Evergreen swags for the walls, and a wreath for the door, a sprig of mistletoe to go over Tony’s and Pepper’s spot on the sofa, and enough lights and ornaments to cover a hundred trees. He arranges for food: Ham and pumpkin pie, to make the house smell cozy, and hot cocoa, because Pepper knows Tony always forgets to turn the heat on in his workroom, and even Southern California gets cold in the wintertime. 

And then when it’s all ready, Pepper goes downstairs. “You’re coming upstairs now Tony,” she says, “if you know what’s good for you.”

“I will, just let me tighten this…” His voice sounds terrible, not a normal, busy-Tony kind of a tone, but that anxious sound that’s only been there since New York. “And maybe… I’m close now Pep, it’ll only take an hour. Give or take.”

“Give or take?” She keeps her own tone light. “If I leave Tony, I’m not coming back today. I still have my apartment in Santa Monica you know.”

“Yeah, about that?”

_If he says it needs more protection_ , she thinks, _if he says it one more time_ … He is going to say it, she knows he is. She cuts him off. “Just some breakfast, Tony. You can work some more after that.”

“All right, all right.” He comes upstairs wiping grease off his hands with a rag. Then she’s rewarded for her and JARVIS’ work by seeing the anxiety get replaced with a look of surprise, when he sees the decorated house. “Aww Pep, I’d completely forgotten it was almost Christmas.” He leans in close for a kiss, and the day is almost salvaged, only then Thor shows up.

__________________________

Asgard’s Mightiest Blond shows up at the exact worst time in the world. Pepper’s fixed up the house beautifully. You almost wouldn’t know it was raining outside, it’s so bright and cozy indoors. And the table is piled with ham, and all kinds of food. Tony cocks a look at his girlfriend about that. “Aren’t we doing gluten-free?”

She gives him one of her best smiles. “Everybody deserves a cheat-day.”

This is cheating in style. Pepper isn’t even dressed. “What about work?” he asks, even while he’s admiring the silky blue thing that she’s wearing instead of her usual suit.

“Work can wait, we both need to relax.”

Ten minutes and _they are relaxing_. He’s on the sofa, and his arm’s around her shoulders, and they’re both holding mugs piled full of whipped cream and marshmallows. “Hot cocoa for breakfast? We should relax more often…”

It’s still too hot for him to drink when the first thunderbolt rumbles. Then follows the lightning. What was it Reindeer Games said on the helicarrier? “I’m not overly fond of what follows.” Tony can identify. Thor’s great and all, but dude, work on your timing!

...Actually, you know what? Never mind. Him interrupting the hot cocoa and foreplay is the least of the bad things Thor does to them that morning.

It starts out nice. They offer him food. He accepts of course, being Asgardian. He wades in, piles his plate with some of everything, then accepts a cup of cocoa. He looks at it, one of those cute confused expressions. “What is this?”

“Hot cocoa,” Pep says. “Try it.”

He tries it. He looks very cute with whipped cream all over his mustache. _After that, things go downhill fast._

“You want us to what?” Pepper’s face is paper-white.

“We can’t.” Tony tries to sound reasonable, sensible. He knows he sounds as horrified as Pepper. “Be realistic Thor,” he says.

Apparently this is realistic, though.

“It is a traditional Asgardian punishment.” Asgard’s Favorite Breck Girl looks disgusted on a fundamental level. He looks miserable. Loki is his adoptive brother after all. “Loki must be broken, if he is to be rehabilitated.”

“You really rehabilitate people this way?” Pepper’s voice sounds so thin.

And Thor nods. “We do, Lady Pepper.”

If they’re going to do this… How can he even be thinking about it? Surely it’s beyond the pale, surely it’s impossible. But in this world where the Chitauri exist, and the universe is full of enemies all waiting to strike, is there even an impossible anymore? And what is it?

“We don’t have to rape him?”

The relieved look on Thor’s face makes Tony feel relief too. Like a big weight was taken off, somewhere deep in his chest.

“He must serve as a slave,” the big warrior says. “His master decides the terms of his servitude.”

So, no raping. That’s good. As for that _broken_ part though…

“I suppose he’s not the same asshole he was back during the Battle?” Tony keeps his voice very offhand.

This time, Thor’s voice is unhappy. “Would that he were not, Friend Tony.”

Actually though, that makes things easier, doesn’t it? Maybe _broken_ just means not an asshole anymore? You know, ready to return to polite society?

Pepper starts looking at him funny. “Tony, you’re not thinking of doing this?”

He is. Hopefully it’s not the biggest mistake of his life. “Thor’s a friend, Pep.”

“I still have my apartment in Santa Monica,” she warns him. But she’ll do it, he can see it in her face. “We’re just rehabilitating him,” she says. She will definitely do it. “But if anything goes wrong Thor, you take him back?”

“Immediately!” The big warrior nods hard. “Thank you Lady Pepper, and Friend Tony!” Business concluded, he returns to the hot cocoa, which has gotten cool enough to drink in the meantime. Thor gulps it down in two swallows, coming up with marshmallows as well as whipped cream all over his beard. “This is good,” he says, “another!” He throws his mug onto the floor with a resounding crash.


	2. Loki is Costumed as a Servant

**[Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe** ****  
**Characters: Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, Loki, Thor** **  
****Author’s note: This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material profit**

Pepper can hear the conversation coming from the other room. “So you saw a snake… Why would you pick up a snake?”

Tony and Thor are drinking hot cocoa again in the dining room. Pepper made Thor use paper cups this time, which he’s probably still throwing on the ground ever time he finishes his cocoa, Thor being Thor. She imagines him sitting with a growing pile of cups around his feet, and it makes her smile. She needs a smile right about now.

Loki is standing in front of her. _He killed 80 people_ , she has to keep reminding herself, because frankly, to look at him? He looks like a teenager. No, not any teenager, he looks like a teenager who’s been used hard and practically starved. He looks like a kid Child Protective Services should be rescuing. Pepper’s met kids like this; the Stark Foundation helps several shelters in Los Angeles that serve exactly this kind of clientele. And Loki looks like those kids, he doesn’t look like a mass killer. _He is though_ , she reminds herself, _he is._

Meanwhile from the other room, “I liked snakes,” Thor’s saying.

“I call bullshit,” says Tony. “No kid likes snakes.”

Pepper heard the gist of Thor’s story before she came in here: Loki and Thor were kids. Loki shapeshifted into the form of a snake, and Thor picked him up. Then Loki turned back into himself and stabbed his brother. The point of the story is that Loki’s devious, and he likes to hurt people. That’s a point they’re always going to need to keep in mind while they’re dealing with him. Tony can have his fun teasing Thor about the story now though, as long as he remembers to be careful around Loki.

Around their new _slave_. That’s not Pepper’s word, that’s the Asgardian word. Loki’s punishment was to be a slave, until…

“I’m worried Lady Pepper,” Thor said when he was discussing this with them. “My brother lies, he’ll pretend he’s rehabilitated, he pretends so many things.” Thus the story about the snake. Don’t let your guard down around Loki, never do it. Just punish him and keep punishing him. “I’ll visit from time to time,” Thor told them. “When he seems sufficiently broken to me, I’ll take him to All-Father, and he will decide.”

Loki looks broken now. He looks broken the way so many street kids are, like he’s crumbled on the inside, but he’s putting on a brave front. Even knowing it’s an act, Pepper still finds it hard to get past it. She has to though, Thor’s counting on her. And Tony? Tony’s looked half broken himself ever since the Battle of New York, if this is going to be done, Pepper needs to be the one who does it. So long as she can bring herself to.

“This is where you’ll sleep.” Pepper steps back, showing their new slave the closet, and the pile of blankets on the floor. “You’ll eat in here too, after you serve us.”

No matter what Thor wants, no matter what Loki is, she is not going to be able to bring herself to physically hurt him, of this much, Pepper is very sure. She isn’t that kind of person, she couldn’t be intentionally cruel. And as for doing sexual things? That’s just disgusting. But he’s a Prince, isn’t he? He was raised in luxury, given everything he wanted. Hopefully they can break him just by hurting his dignity enough.

“Here.” Pepper thrusts the ridiculous French maid’s costume that was Tony’s contribution to the plan toward their guest. _Tell him nothing underneath,_ Tony said, _I want him as uncomfortable as possible._ Tony and Loki have history. Tony never told Pepper about Loki throwing him out the window, but JARVIS did, after he found out Loki was going to be living here. That, along with all the other things that Tony’s been going through… The least she can do is have Loki dress any way Tony wants him to. 

The costume is black and very short, with a lot of ruffles and flounces. It swings back and forth on the hanger as she shoves it at Loki. He looks at it, and his face has the snottiest expression imaginable, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Put it on.”

The snotty expression lingers on his face for a moment. Then it disappears as if it had never been there. “As you say, Madam.”

__________________________

Making Thor explain the snake story is the fun Tony needed on this shitty, shitty day. That he keeps gulping cocoa and throwing paper cups all over the floor makes it all the better. “I like snakes.” His painful sincerity is hilarious, with that chocolate mustache around his mouth.

“No kid likes snakes.” Tony offers the pot of hot cocoa, and Thor of course takes more. “You were weird.”

“I wasn’t weird, I was Asgardian.” There goes another cup into the pile on the floor… There’s another thing: Loki’s going to pick those up. Arrogant Reindeer Games is going to crawl in front of his brother, and pick up all of that trash, preferably with his ass hanging out. That French maid’s outfit Tony found on Amazon was pretty damn short. Tony tells himself that this pleases him. He almost convinces himself.

_Last night he dreamed about going through the wormhole again. Everybody thinks it’s because he almost died, that that was the horrible part. There was a whole civilization in there, and it looked like a civilization. It was Lovecraftian, and weird, but those were people in there, not monsters. He killed a whole civilization. He saved his own, but at what a cost…_

_Here’s the thing: Tony will wake up from those dreams. He’s never sure which one should have survived, Earth, or the Chitauri planet. And he’s never exactly sure who was making the Chitauri attack. Was it Loki, or was there someone else beyond him? ...Someone, who might still be out there, waiting to attack and destroy this civilization too?_

Anyway though, he woke up in a bad mood. And Pepper was doing that thing she’s been doing ever since JARVIS told her about Loki throwing him out the window at Avengers Tower. She always treats him like she’s wearing kid gloves, and it just… Well, if he could be mad at Pep, which he couldn’t be, because he’s done worse to her than she could ever do to him, but if he could, this is when he’d do it, is when she’s treating him like that. It should cheer him up to think that soon he’s going to have snotty Loki to ~~kick around~~ boss pretty soon, but that’s not a very satisfying feeling. Teasing Thor though, is. Or at least it will be until Loki comes in here, French maid suit or no French maid suit.

“So, is Asgard full of snakes?” he asks the big Asgardian. “I mean, are they like puppies are here? What about bilgesnapes? Are those a kind of snake?”

“Well, bilgesnapes,” Thor begins. “How can I describe a bilgesnape?” He stops. They both look at the doorway.

There’s a voice coming from the other room. “As you say, Madam.” It’s Loki’s voice. This is the first time he’s spoken since he got here. It’s his same cultivated BBC accent that Tony remembers from when he was here before, and he tries telling himself that he’s not flashing on falling through that window again, but he’s not very successful. _Fuck_ Loki, _fuck him hard._

Suddenly it seems like watching him crawl in front of his brother might cheer Tony up after all. “Is that our new servant, Pepper?” he calls out.

“It is, Tony.” There’s a nervy little edge to Pep’s voice that makes him think even more about how good it will be to humiliate Loki right now in front of his brother. How dare he make Pepper sound like that?

“Bring him in after he gets changed,” he says. “He’s got some clean-up to do.”

__________________________

Though he knew the Midgardians must have devised some degradation for his brother, yet Thor finds himself surprised at the costume Loki is wearing when he enters the room. He wears it meekly, though it must shame him to his very depths, to be seen before Thor in such clothing. Midgardians are creative, and Friend Tony more so even than the rest of them.

This costume: It is a gown, of sorts. There is faint resemblance to the gowns worn by loose women in the taverns, and yet this would surely shame any woman, whatever her morals. There is a bodice with no chemise under it, tight-laced at Loki’s waist, and with two puffed sleeves barely covering his shoulders. There is a skirt that might have covered Loki’s shame barely, were it not for the innumerable ruffly underskirts puffing it into a wide bell. As it is, Thor can see his brother’s privates in front, and his buttocks in back.

A memory goes through his head: He remembers himself spreading those buttocks, and taking Loki hard. Instantly, he pushes the thought from his mind. Loki must be thinking about it too. Perhaps that was why he allowed himself to be dressed like this, was to cause pain to his brother.

Looking for something else to think about, his attention goes to Loki’s hair. It is styled in its usual way, flat around his face, and hanging smoothly to his shoulders.

“The hair’s wrong.” Knowing his brother is trying to manipulate him makes Thor more abrupt than usual. Loki must not be allowed to play with Tony’s and Pepper’s minds, the way he is attempting to play with Thor’s. “Tell him to use his illusions to change it. He can, you know.”

“Can you?” Thor looks at the Lady Pepper as she speaks to his brother. Her expression is practical, efficient. If anyone can give Loki the punishment he deserves without succumbing to their own emotions, she can, surely.

“I can if Thor says I can.” The sarcastic note to Loki’s voice is so slight that Thor dares hope his captors will not notice.

Tony though, having been a victim of Loki’s once, reacts immediately. “Do it, Reindeer Games.”

Having once elicited a reaction, it is inevitable that Loki will intensify his own attack. The condescension is barely masked as he responds, “How would my _master_ like me to style it?”

Thor hurries to intervene. “The costume is a bar wench’s Loki, your hair should match that.”

His brother is still eyeing Tony. Does he want the Midgardian to hit him? What does he want? Tony does not speak at first, and it is the Lady Pepper who answers Loki. Curls, I think,” she begins.

“I think ringlets.” To Thor’s relief, Tony’s voice is calm again, and his face has that amused expression that is most normal for it. “Cute ringlets, all over your head… How well do you know Earth movies, Reindeer Games?”

“Me?” Loki sounds surprised now. He wasn’t expecting Tony to collect himself again, was he? “Earth _movies_?”

“You researched us,” Tony says, “I know you did. Make your hair look like Shirley Temple’s. I’ll wait,” he adds, as Loki goes still for a moment and does nothing.

A moment later, Thor cannot help laughing, as his brother’s smooth hairstyle turns into a mass of springy curls, all around his face.

“And make-up I think,” Tony says. “Pink lipstick, Reindeer Games, and give yourself false eyelashes.”

Now a look of resentment flashes across Loki’s face, as he gives himself these added details. Thor begins to feel relieved. Lady Pepper may be the calmer one, but Tony too is eminently suited for punishing his brother. Loki has never hated anything so much as being embarrassed in public, and Tony has so many creative ways of embarrassing him.

“Now.” Tony points at Thor’s feet, where a pile of paper cups seems to have sprung up as if by magic. His cups? Did he drink as much of the Midgardian beverage as this? “On your knees, Reindeer Games. Clean those up.”

Loki is crawling near Thor now. He’s so close that his hand brushes the warrior’s shoe once, and then a moment later his buttocks are touching Thor’s knee. The objective surely is to shame him, and it is working, Thor has no doubt of that. Loki has always felt himself inferior, no matter how equally matched their talents have been from the start. Unfortunately though, there is a second effect happening as well. Loki is completely sexualized in his new costume, and it grows harder and harder for Thor to ignore that. In spite of himself, he cannot help looking at his brother. The shameful thoughts of having taken him as punishment come back, this time cloaked with desire. Thor feels himself grow hard, without volition, as he used to do when he was but a boy. Shame licks at his mind…

_Loki is being manipulative as always. Since he cannot affect Friend Tony right now, he has turned his attack toward Thor. That’s all this is, it is Loki trying to affect him, and he almost gave him the success he wanted._

Thor reaches out with one foot. He doesn’t kick his brother, but he pushes him away from his own legs. “Make the servant finish when I am gone,” he says.

The Lady Pepper backs him up, her voice smooth and calm, as it must be when she works with Friend Tony in his business endeavors. “You heard our guest, Loki. You may go to your room for now.”

“His room?” Tony asks, as Loki departs their presence.

“I put some blankets in the broom closet,” Pepper tells him.

“Along with the brooms I hope? And the mop bucket? Too bad the drain’s not backing up right now.”

“Tony, we’re punishing him, not torturing him.”

“Yeah.” Tony turns an amused grin Thor’s way, as if to say they’d both be fine with either, wouldn’t they? “Anyway, it might back up later,” he says.

“Tony, if you do anything…”

Between the two of them, they will punish Loki well, and rehabilitate him if that is still at all possible. Thor tells himself that he is leaving because he knows his brother is in good hands, but the thought of him in that serving wench’s costume, with his buttocks exposed, keeps coming back. And too often, the feelings of desire come with it.


	3. Getting Used to the New Guest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Necessary Disclaimer: I have ABSOLUTELY NO PLAN for this story, except to have all the characters react naturally, but with as much punitiveness as possible. For all I know, this may end up in disaster for me, the author, rather than for Loki.

**[Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe** ****  
**Characters: Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, Loki, JARVIS** **  
****Author’s note: This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material profit**

Tony feels guilty the first time he kicks Loki. Not because of Loki you understand, because seriously? Fuck that guy. He feels guilty because Pepper might see him if he does things like that. Pepper still has this illusion that they’re better than Loki. She is yeah, but Tony so fucking isn’t. He’s just the same as the little bastard, both of them are killers. Tony’s just managed to hold onto his respect for the people that are better than him so far, and the last thing he’d want to do is hurt one of them. Especially Pepper.

Here’s what happens, and here’s what makes it especially shameful: Loki isn’t even doing anything. Loki is asleep. Pep’s got this little spot set up for him in the broom closet. It is way better than a killer deserves, even though it isn’t so very much actually. Little pile of blankets on the floor, but they’re clean blankets. Room isn’t even cold right now, it’s warmer than the rest of the house, and Loki is sleeping there, his head on one blanket that’s been bunched up sort of like a pillow, and with another blanket covering him. He’s stretched out with his head by the utility sink, and his feet hanging out the door. His eyes are closed, and there’s a smile on his face.

Suddenly there wasn’t anything inside Tony but anger. Deserved anger, yeah, sure, of course it was, but let’s be real here: Pepper could have walked by any time. Pep always keeps her head in a crisis. This wasn’t even a crisis, but Tony lost his, he lost it big-time.

You want to know what went through his head? Stuttgart. He saw Loki, and then it was like he wasn’t seeing him anymore. Instead he was seeing the security footage from that event in Stuttgart, the one where Loki mutilated some guy, to serve his own purposes, only it wasn’t that, that Tony was thinking about. It was the part right before that, where he reaches out and whacks someone in the face, just for shits and giggles.

Tony had reached out and kicked Loki before he thought about it. Did it feel good? A lie to say it didn’t, but was it necessary? Did it serve any ultimate purpose? It didn’t even serve Tony much of a purpose, not like the anger went away because he did it even. Here’s Pepper’s plan, that he was supposed to follow, and it’s still a good one:

“We’ll humiliate him,” she said. “We’ll take away his dignity, until he understands that he needs to change. But we’ll do it without getting emotionally involved, Tony. Because we have to, because otherwise we’re going to be dragged down to his level.”

If Pep had seen him kick Loki, she would have been so disappointed. Worse than that though, because what would be worse? _She might have done it also._ She might see him lash out, and then she’d lash out too. The worst thing in the whole world is good going bad, because then what is there even to fight for? Tony kicked Loki, then right away he pulled his foot back really fast, as it hit him just what he’d done. He walked away, thinking _Fuck that, fuck it, I’ll never do that again._ Then he went downstairs to his workroom. Anything to get his mind off the boundary that he’d just crossed.

Upstairs, Loki was still being supervised. The Asgardian monitoring device that Thor brought when he brought his brother was still on, it was still broadcasting back to Asgard. JARVIS was still on the alert, ready to send a message to the suits if anything happened. Downstairs, Tony worked on an idea that he’d been having.

He’s been thinking a lot lately about Hulk smashing Loki into the floor. Jesus Christ, how satisfying was that! And, best thing: No blame for anybody. Because that was Hulk. Nobody controls Hulk. Loki was stopped, the Avengers all kept their hands clean, even Bruce. Lately Tony’s been thinking about what kind of software he could write so the suits could punish Loki like that, instead of him or Pepper having to do it. Moral judgments would have to be made, but there are algorithms for that, he could make it work. 

Tony sits down in front of his favorite work-keyboard, Dum-E turns the Metallica up loud, and You brings him a green smoothie. Then after that Tony lets go of his problems, at least for a little while. 

__________________________

Upstairs, Pepper comes into the kitchen to find that the coffee hasn’t been made yet. It’s past nine, way later than she normally goes into work, but she’d planned on spending a little time with Loki before going into the office. She was going to give him his orders for the day; it’s more than a little frustrating to come in here and see that he didn’t complete all of his orders from yesterday.

Giving him orders isn’t fun. First off, there’s his attitude. It’s just like a street kid’s attitude, very know-it-all, very arrogant. “You put the coffee in here,” Pepper told him. “See the reusable cups? Fill one...” There was that snotty look on his face, even though he can’t have ever made coffee before in his life, can he? “Put it in the slot,” she continued, though, “and add precisely ten ounces of water…” She went through the whole process, all these details that she knows are new to him, Loki not even looking her way for most of it.

Dirty little secret? She wasn’t expecting that coffee to be ready. Most delinquents need to make a few mistakes and feel the consequences for them, before they start doing things right. Pepper came into the kitchen, she was fully expecting to have to tell JARVIS to start the coffee, which is what she does.

What she wasn’t expecting… -- No, she was expecting it, she was just dreading it as well. -- The problem here is the matter of punishment. If Loki makes a mistake, what do you do to him then? Because the thing is that with street kids, there have to be some privileges for them to work for. Pepper’s talked to shelter staff, she knows the process: You do this, you get that. You act right, there’s always a reward. But what is Loki working for? Nothing. Because unlike with the delinquents in the shelters, she and Tony aren’t supposed to reward Loki, ever. They’re not supposed to build up, or teach him dignity, or respect, or any of that. They’re just supposed to break him down.

 _It’s how they do things in Asgard,_ Pepper tells herself, _it’s what he expects._ She pulls up the picture of Thor’s face, telling them all about this so-standard Asgardian punishment. They use criminals for the lowest types of servitude there, and they use them sexually.

“And you really rehabilitate people by doing this?” she remembers asking him.

“Oh, by all means,” he said, “all the time.”

 _All the time…_ Loki’s legs are hanging out onto the kitchen floor. Pepper steps over them, stomping down as loudly as she can, but failing to wake him up. _This is how Asgardians are rehabilitated…_ She jabs at his ankle with one toe, but he still doesn’t budge. Then she makes the mistake of looking into his face. There is the sweetest, most innocent smile in the world on there. Big dark hollows under his eyes, but his smile is just like a baby’s. _He’s not human,_ she reminds herself, _you can’t treat him like a human._ But, if she has to look into his face… How’s she supposed to treat him like the Asgardians want him to be treated? She’s just going to keep thinking about that smile.

She should whip him. It’s the standard Asgardian punishment for disobedience, Thor said that over and over. Pepper thinks about it though, and it just makes her sick. There’s no way she can do that.

Tony bought something else when he was on Amazon buying the maid’s outfit. He bought something that she’s going to have to use, even though it’s pretty disturbing itself. Pepper jostles Loki hard until he wakes up. His eyes come open. One moment that innocent ( _not what it looks like_ ) smile is still on his face, the next minute there’s the arrogant street-kid look again.

Pepper keeps her voice cool, professional (just as if this were the kind of situation any professional on Earth would ever have to deal with). “You didn’t complete all your duties yesterday, Loki,”

“No, madam.” His voice is snippy, which makes it (a little) easier to follow through with his punishment.

“What’s your excuse?” she says.

“There isn’t one. -- _Naturally_.”

Thank god for the snippiness, Pepper could never -- Never! -- bring herself to put someone into a dog crate otherwise, even with the bottle of water that JARVIS put in there, even with the time-lock set for just four hours.

 _How do you rehabilitate anyone by dehumanizing them? Asgardian or not?_ “You.” Pepper gestures. “In there.” The crate’s green, she notices for the first time, and the lock’s been painted gold.

“Yes, madam.” Loki doesn’t double-take or anything, he just goes. Like someone who’s been locked up before, but of course he has been, hasn’t he? _And if it didn’t break him before, why would it break him now?_ The thought comes into her head, and she pushes it right back out. This is the Asgardian way, it’s what he expects.

“I’ll put the list of your duties for the day on the table.” Amazingly, her voice is still cool and businesslike. “Finish them all today, or there’ll be a punishment tomorrow as well.”

From inside the cage, his voice a little muffled now, “Yes Madam,” Loki says.

Pepper swallows. For a moment, she thinks longingly of her apartment in Santa Monica. But they both promised Thor they’d do this, didn’t they? She can’t leave Tony to do it alone. Filling her go-cup from the Keurig machine, she leaves the kitchen. Never has she so looked forward to her eight hour workday at Stark Headquarters, in her entire life! 

__________________________

Four hours go by, after the lock closes. Then it unseals. JARVIS watches as skinny fingers reach through the mesh window, and the alien pushes the door open. He feels no emotion at all. Loki comes out, unfolding himself slowly to stand upright. Mr. Stark is downstairs in his workroom; JARVIS can feel that he has taken his own moral center has been taken offline, while he is recoding it. In the absence of new instructions from his master, he watches Loki with relative indifference.

JARVIS’ moral center has always been rudimentary. Designed at first, only to keep him focused on ensuring Mr. Stark’s comfort, it has since been rewritten once. Now his priority is always to protect Ms. Potts. The AI knows that Mr. Stark wants to rewrite it again, and he knows that this new revision is to include details about treatment of the alien who is now staying here.

For the moment though, he has no moral compass at all, to use in his assessment of Loki. All he has are observations: The alien is humanoid. He is taller than Mr. Stark or Ms. Potts, but appears to be thinner than either of them. When either of JARVIS’ two masters looks at him, Loki’s face will wear an obsequious expression. When they turn away, that expression becomes angry and vindictive. From context, the AI understands that both Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts are aware of this.

There is one thing further that they are not aware of. This is the look of exhaustion that will consume Loki’s face when there are no humans around to see him. He moves differently when he is unobserved, too. His shoulders slump, his steps become very slow, and all of his motions are clumsy. Right now for instance, attempting to clean the Keurig machine, per Ms. Potts’ orders, JARVIS watches the alien drop the refillable coffee cup, spattering coffee all over the kitchen.

“By Odin’s beard!” Loki’s voice is tired, not angry, and his movements appear almost painful, as he kneels, attempting to wipe the spatters off the baseboard. He uses his hand to wipe, as though he has no idea what he is doing. Then he stands, slowly, as if with difficulty. He tries wiping again with a dry paper towel, and then with a wet one. JARVIS has been programmed with enough volition to wish desperately that he could intervene, taking the task back for himself, and doing it correctly. He must refrain however, as Ms. Potts has given Loki this duty.

The alien finally gives up, leaving coffee-colored spatters all over the white woodwork. He rises again, goes to throw his handful of dirty paper towels into the trash, and misses. “By Odin’s beard,” he mutters.

JARVIS’ assessment: The alien called Loki has been injured, over and over, for quite a long time, to have created the current level of exhaustion, and what appears to be depression. There is no confidence left in him whatsoever, no hope that he can rectify his situation. This assessment is completely dispassionate; the AI has not been programmed to feel any emotions at all for Loki. He does feel a certain satisfaction however, noting that in his current state the alien holds no threat for Ms. Potts.


	4. With Re Food

**[Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe** ****  
**Characters: Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, Loki, JARVIS** **  
****Author’s note: This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material profit**

Here’s a question. Hypothetical, maybe you haven’t thought about it before: But, just for argument’s sake, what if Loki didn’t plan on killing anyone when he came to Earth? What if he thought humans were invulnerable like Asgardians, and they would all survive? Is that better? Is it worse? Does it make any difference at all?

For the record, it doesn’t make a difference. Loki should have known. He should have done the research, he should have found out about humans before he even thought about coming to Earth. Instead he just came down here and started whaling on people without having the faintest idea what was going to happen. The irresponsibility of this… Well, maybe it wasn’t possible for Tony to feel madder at Loki than he was already. _Maybe_.

Tony at least, has the data that he needs. Asgardians are more invulnerable than Earth buildings. This was proved countless times during the invasion. Therefore when he goes to write JARVIS’ new moral programming, he knows what to include.

“No permanent damage to the house JARVIS,” he says.

“And to the alien Loki?”

“He’ll be alright.”

JARVIS is just an AI. Tony programmed him from scratch, and he doesn’t a single idea that isn’t there because Tony gave it to him. Somehow it still feels uncomfortable talking about this with him. Like JARVIS might judge him for what he’s saying? As if an AI could? Maybe it feels like Tony might judge himself if he says too much out loud, or maybe on some level he already is judging himself and he doesn’t want to admit it.

Maybe this is just something else he should blame on Loki? Yeah, let’s go with that. Fuck Loki.

“As you wish sir,” JARVIS says. “Entering code for the new moral programming: Punish Loki if he disobeys Mr. Stark or Ms. Potts, but do no permanent damage to the house.”

“Or to other buildings, or to the environment.”

“As you say sir. The new code has been added.”

“Put it online.” Tony stands up, stretches. “What is Loki doing right now?”

As it turns out, Reindeer Games is eating. Tony comes upstairs and finds him still at it. He’s going at the food with an almost animalistic intensity. Like he hasn’t eaten in months. Maybe because he hasn’t. Thor said they were treating him pretty hard when he was on Asgard, and when you’re invulnerable, do you even need to eat? A conversation Tony’s had with Pepper: “He’s invulnerable,” he told her, not just once, but lots of times. “We could literally do anything to him...Look, we’re supposed to break him, right?” What would break someone faster than not feeding them? But Pepper always said no.

“I’m not going to be that kind of person, Tony,” she always said. Which, fair enough. It would be terrible if she were that kind of person.

So, they feed him. Tony comes upstairs and finds Loki eating. He’s gobbling food out of the fridge, almost at random it looks like. Gluten-free waffles, and pears, there goes a slice of Domino’s pizza, and there’s a tubful of leftovers from the clam shack a block away from their house.

“Don’t let me bother you.”

Loki looks up as Tony speaks. His expression is vicious, just like an animal’s. _If Pepper could only see it,_ Tony thinks for a moment, but then he revises the thought. It wouldn’t matter if she did see it. Pepper doesn’t hold back because of Loki, does she? She holds back because of what it would do to her if she didn’t.

“Your woman said I could eat,” Loki says.

“Oh I know,” Tony responds, “go ahead, knock yourself out. But you still have chores to do, don’t you? Don’t forget those.”

The chores are a joke. Loki does the most piss-poor job of cleaning a house that you can possibly imagine. He cleans a house the way Tony would… No, because Tony would make a machine to do it for him, wouldn’t he? Because that’s what he did; that was part of why he made JARVIS.

Loki, though? He does it himself. And his cleaning skills are pathetic. It looks like he mopped the floor while Tony was downstairs. Floor was perfectly clean before, because it’s always perfectly clean, because JARVIS keeps it that way. Now it’s got these soapy streaks all over it.

“You’re going to have to clean the floor again.”

Loki looks up from the tubful of Greek yogurt he was devouring. There is yogurt on his lips, which gives the illusory impression of vulnerability. Also there’s a look in his eyes that’s almost like desperation. Because he doesn’t want to clean the floor? Because he knows he’s going to do a shitty job again?

Too bad so sad, he should have thought of that before he invaded the Earth. Anyway, Thor just said to break him, didn’t matter if it was mentally or physically. Both is best, by the way. You can weaken him physically, but breaking him is going to have to come from inside.

“Go ahead and finish your meal.” Tony knows his voice sounds condescending as hell, and he doesn’t care. If anything, that just makes it better. “Take your time, enjoy it. Just so long as you have the chores done when Pepper gets home.”

“You might as well kill me Stark,” Loki mutters. Sincere words? Is he that close to being broken already? It would save so much trouble if he were! But he’s probably not, he’s just being Loki, AKA, as manipulative as possible.

“I would if I could, Loki.” This time Tony knows that he sounds completely sincere. Which is fine, because he is (probably).

__________________________

With re food: Pepper had that conversation when Thor was here. “What did you feed him on Asgard?” she asked.

The big warrior stared at her. “Feed him? We didn’t feed him.”

This apparently is standard treatment for many Asgardian prisoners. “When it is a small crime that is being punished,” Thor says, “then the normal diet is bread and water. Loki’s crime was great, however. He is lucky that All-Father is giving him the chance of rehabilitation at all.”

Here is something disturbing that will tell you about Asgardians: “What was the alternative?” Pepper asked, though she didn’t really want to know. It turns out the alternative would have meant chaining Loki inside a dark cave, with a snake above him, dropping venom onto his face. Forever.

“Mother begged for Loki to be given another chance,” Thor says, while Pepper is swallowing bile at the image. “All-Father agreed, but he told us Loki must be punished as harshly as possible. He deserves it surely, wouldn’t you say Lady Pepper?”

How can you know what a being “deserves,” who is capable of surviving while snakes drip venom into their face forever? A beating must not be even a slap in the face for such a creature, and as for starving him?

Tony’s words: “Well, it would break him faster. Isn’t that what we want?”

It would break Tony, that’s what Pepper thinks. That’s why she said no. She thinks she could have withheld food from Loki herself, for a little while, if she was sure he’d break quickly and she could send him home. She would ignore that pathetic look he gets on his face sometimes, and how thin he is, and all of that. She’d keep reminding herself that this is a being who would have survived snake-venom, and keep her mind on how he was going to be gone soon, and she’d get through it.

Tony though? Loki practically killed him. Then he nearly died again, taking the nuke through the wormhole _that Loki created_. Sometimes Pepper will see Tony looking at Loki, when he doesn’t think she’s watching. There’ll be a look on his face that nearly terrifies her, a look of pure anger and vindictiveness. If Tony let loose, he wouldn’t just punish Loki, he’d go all-out to destroy him. He’d fail of course, because what can he do that would compare to snake venom, but at what cost to himself?

A little inside joke that goes back to the beginnings of Pepper’s relationship with Tony: He had her take the arc reactor out of his chest that time when the battery died. She put it on a pedestal with the inscription, “Proof That Tony Stark Has a Heart.” But even then, she wasn’t serious about it. See the thing with Tony: He has too much of a heart. He cares too much, and usually with no idea at all about how to turn his caring into practical action. He’ll ignore people because he doesn’t want to say no to them, or he’ll give all these stupid presents, because he wants to give a present, but he forgot to think about what the person would want. But when he hurts someone, it matters to him, and it eats at him.

Tony’s probably telling himself that he can do anything to Loki, because he’s invulnerable. If he did though, it would break him way before Loki was broken. What would Tony be like if he were completely broken? Pepper doesn’t want to find out, he’s broken enough already.

Loki will be fed. He’ll be punished by confinement and humiliation, not by any of the cruel or disgusting methods they used on him on Asgard. Hopefully, this will break him, but if it looks like it’s breaking Tony instead, then Pepper’s going to get in touch with Thor and have him take his brother home again. Let them torture him if they want to, and refuse to feed him. Hell, let them chain him up in a cave with snakes if they want to. At least Tony will be safe that way.

Thus, she is trying to break him with humiliation. It’s not going well. _Chores,_ she’d thought, _he’ll do chores. He’ll sleep in the broom closet, and he’ll wear that stupid maid’s outfit, and he’ll clean things._ There quickly turned out to be quite a lot of problems with this plan. The maid outfit looked stupid, and it seemed like it embarrassed Pepper way more than it did Loki. He wore it, sometimes he looked rebellious like a street kid, other times he just looked indifferent. Meanwhile she felt uncomfortable the whole time.

“He’s not wearing it anymore,” she finally told Tony.

“Fine, whatever,” was his response, followed by a passive-aggressive little comment: “We’re not doing a great job at breaking him yet, you know that.”

Yeah, she knows that. Maybe humans break faster than Asgardians.

Next problem is the cleaning. JARVIS is starting to rebel.

You wouldn’t think one of Tony’s AI could rebel, but cleanliness seems to go deep in JARVIS’ programming. It seems like it overrides everything else, even important things like following orders. Pepper told him at the start of this, “Loki cleans from now on, JARVIS.”

“Yes Ms. Potts,” he said, just like always.

At first JARVIS didn’t interfere. Pepper came home from work the first day, to find coffee spatters on the baseboard, and smears of food on the dishes in the drainer. The next day she got up: Yesterday’s grounds were still in the Keureg, and yesterday’s go-cup was still in the sink with dirty water in it. JARVIS managed two days of noninterference. Loki was doing all the chores wrong, and he was getting punished for it. It seemed like he was giving her the rebellious-kid look less, and the defeated one more and more. She was starting to hope that maybe she could get Loki out of here, no fuss, no lasting damage to Tony. Then the third day, JARVIS started cleaning again.

Pepper gave him a new instruction. “Loki cleans, and you don’t interfere, JARVIS.”

“Yes Ms. Potts,” he said. But she still comes home to an immaculate house. The morning coffee still tastes good, like it does when JARVIS makes it (Loki makes terrible coffee), and the dishes in the drainer are always sparkling clean. Meanwhile, Tony is looking more and more strained. Is he messing with Loki while she’s gone at work during the day? Is he trying to punish him, or what is he doing?

Somehow the guy who can survive snake venom seems to be winning. He still has that defeated look, but it’s not getting worse, and he’s gaining weight, now that he’s allowed to eat. Should she have followed Asgard’s policy of starvation and beatings? Lord, of all the ugly things that she’s had to do, since she’s been with Tony, please let it not come to torturing an alien!


	5. Beat-Down Number One

**[Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe** ****  
**Characters: Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, Loki, JARVIS** **  
** **Author’s note: This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material profit**

Here’s something Pepper sees when she comes home from work one day. This is about a week after JARVIS’ new morality protocol was put online.

Tony, by the way: “I’ve given JARVIS a new moral code, Pep.”

To which she responded, “Good.” Then, in a double-take, “JARVIS has a moral code?”

It took some time getting it out of Tony; turned out the moral code was,  _ Protect Pepper at all costs. _ Just that, just  _ Protect Pepper. _ This is part of what’s been bothering Tony since the invasion of New York. Is it OCD? Just what exactly is it? It’s a mental illness, though she hates using the word, and it seems to be getting worse rather than better. Tony should have seen somebody about it, she should have insisted. He should see somebody now, only how is she supposed to work that without them finding out about Loki?

Returning to the subject though, that was JARVIS’ “old” moral code (that dated back only to right after the invasion. The new one is worse. It deals with Loki.

“Punish Loki.” Tony said it offhand. Very casually, “Somebody’s got to do it,” he told her. “We promised we’d break him, and you don’t like doing it, and me…”

There was a pause. Pepper listened very closely. There was something really uncomfortable about Tony’s voice when he started talking again, but what was it? Insincerity? Or half-insincerity? Can there be such a thing as half-insincerity?

“I guess I don’t like it either,” Tony said, and while the words relieved her, Pepper didn’t like the tone he used when he said it. There was far too much doubt in Tony’s voice, which came way to close to admitting that he does like hurting Loki for her to feel comfortable. Especially when he added, “So from now on JARVIS is going to punish him,” as if that made everything alright again.

And now a week later, this is what she finds. There is a smashed hole in the granite flooring in the living room. A human-sized hole. A Loki-hole.

“Tony…” You know when Pepper’s felt like this before? Several years ago she went into Obadiah Stane’s office, and she hacked his files. She’d been expecting something bad when she did it. Nothing prepares you for some levels of bad though, not when they’re coming from someone who was just a normal person to you, up until then. A boss, a boyfriend…

Let’s be real here, it was worse when Stane contracted with the Ten Rings to have Tony killed. Tony could be killed, but Loki? The jury is out on that one. But Stane was never all that great of a person to begin with. He played up to Tony alright, because he wanted something from him, he wanted power. All the women who worked for Stark knew how he really was though. Or they thought they did; there’s a difference between rushin’ hands and roamin’ fingers, and putting a hit out on the CEO of the company. Pepper knew Stane was horrible, then there was a shock finding out just what lengths he’d go to, to get power. Tony is a decent man with some faults. Decent men shouldn’t program robots to beat someone down, not even if an invulnerable alien.

Pepper comes in, she sees that hole. “Tony?” It’s like her throat has closed up; she can barely whisper it.

“Yeah?” He’s over on the sofa. Loki is on his knees near him, scrubbing some of the intact flooring. Tony looks at Pepper, then he looks back at Loki for a moment. “Do it right this time,” he says, “or you know what’ll happen.”

There’s bile in her throat, Pepper swallows it down. “Tony, how did that hole get there?”

“You know how.” To her relief, she hears shame in Tony’s voice. Relief? How can you talk about relief in a situation like this? But there is some relief. Tony should be ashamed if he’s programming JARVIS to beat Loki.

“Why?” she asks, knowing all the while. They promised Thor that they would break his brother. Everything else has followed from there.

And Tony’s up, he has his arms around her, right away he’s in full contrition-mode. “I know you don’t like having him here,” he says, pointing at Loki. “I know you don’t want to be the person who hurts him, and you don’t want me to be either.”

“Do you want to hurt him, Tony?” When he says no, he sounds completely sincere. Here’s the thing though, if he programmed JARVIS to do it, that was him hurting Loki, and he has to know it. On some level he knows it, and it’s going to eat at him, just like blowing up the Chitauri.

“We have to get him out of here,” she says.

“I know.” Tony points toward where Loki is scrubbing. “That’s blood he’s wiping up. JARVIS does a pretty good beat-down, if I do say so myself. A few more of those, and I think we’ll have this job done, and we can send him back to Asgard.”

Here’s something Pepper can’t stop herself from asking: “What will they do with him there?”

“They’ll know what to do,” Tony says. “I’m sure they’ve dealt with this kind of thing before.”

How does anyone make decent citizens by beating people into the ground? Even on Asgard?

“Prime directive,” Tony tells her. “Like  _ Star Trek _ , don’t impose your values on other civilizations. If this is how Asgard does things, this is how they do them.”

“You don’t like beating him though, do you?” she has to ask it.

“No, of course not.” Tony looks over at Loki again. “Keep working,” he says. “I still see some spots there.”

__________________________

Data on the first beating of the alien Loki. Mr. Stark asked JARVIS to prepare this, but so far he hasn’t wanted to see it. The data is as follows: “Separate the recycling” was part of Ms. Potts’ instruction list on the morning of Wednesday, December 14th. The alien was observed putting a beer can into the bin marked “Glass.” Per his moral programming, JARVIS punished him for this disobedience. Parameters were as follows: Do no permanent damage to the building.

The Mark XX suit picked Loki up by the ankles. It beat him against the living room floor five times. After the fourth time, the floor cracked, after the fifth, a crater was made. This does not constitute permanent damage, as it can be easily repaired by replacing the flooring.

Per Mr. Stark’s parameters, there was indeed no serious injury to the alien Loki. There was some superficial blood-flow from the nose, but no bones were broken nor were his internal organs damaged. Afterward Mr. Stark told the alien, “Clean up that blood.”

“Yes Mr. Stark,” the alien responded. The Mark XX remains on alert, to ensure that this instruction is obeyed satisfactorily. In the meantime, JARVIS has contacted Bel Air Flooring. New granite will arrive on Friday, and will be installed in-house.

__________________________

No lie: There was some enjoyment, watching Loki bleed. Just for a moment… -- It didn’t last long. -- ...A second or two later, all Tony could think about was bleeding himself, and how it feels when he bleeds, and times when he’s been close to death and bleeding etcetera, but for that first second or two?  _ Sheer pleasure and enjoyment. _ The guy who threw him out a fucking window, just grab, swing him up into the air and then bang, and he was falling to his death through the air. That guy was bleeding, and there was this voice inside Tony that was like,  _ fuck yeah! _

Did it leave Loki any brokener though? Did it change anything at all about him?

If anything, it felt like Tony was the one who was being changed. And here’s the thing: Pepper always worries that Tony’s going to turn into this amoral monster if he ever lets go and really whales on Loki, but that wasn’t what happened. How does anybody know if they’re turning into an amoral monster? It doesn’t feel like that’s what happened. What it feels like instead?

How do you talk about this? What do you even say? How is it that you can hurt somebody that deserves to be punished, deserves it really badly even… How can you do that, and it seems like it hurts you more than it hurts them?

And even that’s not really it. What it is, is it seems like it hurts Loki when you do stuff to him. Thor’s words though: “He lies, my brother lies.” He said it over and over. Loki apparently, has pretended to be dead. He’s pretended all kinds of things. Tony saw it firsthand, didn’t he? When Loki used that hologram to get out of the Hulk cage? He’s seen what a good faker Loki is, and he’s heard it. You. Can’t. Trust. A. Word. He. Says.

Nevertheless, he looks like he’s being hurt, and that gets piled onto the way hurting him does nothing but bring flashbacks of all the times when Tony’s been hurt himself. Someone could get broken just trying to break Loki, but what the hell are you going to do? They made a promise.

Anyway though, here’s what happened: First Loki did the recycling wrong. Natural mistake. Everybody gets those bins mixed up at first. JARVIS took it for disobedience though, which technically it was. He punished him for it and Loki ended up bleeding. Tony felt like he was going to throw up, but he played through it, as they say. “Clean up the blood,” he told Loki.

“Right away sir,” Loki said, or some such, his obedient tone maybe a fake one, who knows. He starts in cleaning, and Tony watches. Then Pepper comes home, and she of course freaked the hell out.

Pepper’s going to get in touch with Thor soon, and have him take his brother back. Tony’s pretty sure of that, and you know what? Maybe that would be a relief. Maybe they really can’t break the little bastard, they’re just going to have to give him back, and admit to Thor, “Well, we failed.”

Of course Pepper could just go stay somewhere else until JARVIS finishes the job. She could go to that apartment in Santa Monica that she’s always talking about. Too bad Tony can’t go with her. It would be so nice not to have to deal with this shit anymore, only he can’t leave JARVIS to do it without giving him a metric of what “broken” is supposed to look like. “Broken,” in what sense? JARVIS would immediately think physical. Tony’s pretty sure JARVIS doesn’t have the power to break Loki physically, so that would mean keeping him here permanently. And speaking of mentally? Even Tony isn’t good enough to program an AI to recognize when somebody’s mentally broken. He could have psychosis be the criteria… Jesus Christ, how long would that take?

Maybe Pepper’s right, maybe they should just call Thor. It goes seriously against the grain for Tony Stark to admit failure though, that’s worse even than watching JARVIS give someone a beat-down. In a week he’ll do it. If Loki’s not broken in a week, then they call Thor. He just hopes he and Pepper can survive for another week of this without being broken themselves.


	6. JARVIS Punishes Loki

**[Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe** ****  
**Characters: Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, Loki, JARVIS** **  
****Author’s note: This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material profit**

They had decided, one more week. A couple of days go by. There were a few more punishment situations going forward, nothing bad enough that it couldn’t be cleaned up before Pepper got home, though, so that was good.

Correction: Tony _thought_ it was good. One night he wakes up. He’d gone to sleep fairly early that night, close against Pep’s warm, sleeping body (AKA, the right way to go to sleep). Suddenly he wakes up and there’s this noise.

A sobbing noise. Pepper was sobbing. “Are you awake?” Tony murmurs. She doesn’t answer at first, but she does cuddle closer to him, her tear-wet cheeks tucked close against his shoulder. She was awake. And she’d been crying for awhile when Tony woke up. Here’s a detail: Her hair was wet. All that long beautiful red hair of hers was damp with tears. 

You can imagine what Tony felt like, for not having woken up sooner. But he was awake now. _You’ve got to fix things once you know about them._

“It’s Loki, isn’t it?” Do you have to ask how he knew that was what she was crying about? Hopefully not. Hopefully you’ve been paying attention, because at this point it would be way too depressing to have to go through the whole story again. 

And it was Loki of course, because naturally. “Why though?” Tony asks, because Pepper hadn’t been home a lot the past few days, see? And he knew why she hadn’t been home, she didn’t want to deal with what was going on. Understandably, who would? Tony doesn’t really like dealing with it either. But they were going along alright, it was only going to be for another week… For five days at that point. Pepper made it through two days, and there were only five more. Then one night Tony wakes up to her crying.

“You know we’ve only got five days left?” he asks.

“Yeah.” You know how your voice goes really stuffy-sounding when you cry for a long time? Like you’ve got the worst cold of all time? Pep’s voice was like that, and Tony felt like even more of a shit when he heard it.

Why would he feel like a shit about that? Not like this was his fault, right? Didn’t they both tell Thor they would do this? But he did, it was free-floating guilt maybe. It was that tendency that he knows he has to take all the world’s problems onto his shoulders. Knowing you do something doesn’t mean you’re going to be able to stop.

Tony felt like dog shit, scraped off the bottom of somebody’s shoe. He felt lower than that, lower than worms, or protozoa, lower than anything. And Pep’s still crying, she’s cuddled close, and he can feel her whole body shaking, and the wetness of her tears.

And he told her then, “You have to go stay in your apartment, Pepper, stay there until this is over.”

She put up a fight. “Tony no,” she said, “Tony, I don’t want to, I want to stay with you.” 

Nobody deserves a woman who cares that much about them, nobody. Tony certainly doesn’t deserve her. He insisted, of course. Finally she went. “Five more days,” he told her. “Five days, and we’ll be together again, and Loki will be gone.”

“I told myself I could do this,” she said. “I said I’d do it for you, you know? But Tony, I’m sorry.”

Here’s why she did it: Tony didn’t understand that night, but now he does. See, neither of them was doing the torturing… See, it is torturing. Maybe it’s Asgardian policy, maybe there exists a planet out there where this is standard practice, and everybody expects it. That doesn’t change reality: This is torture. Thor said, “Will you torture my brother?” Doesn’t matter if it’s a suit that’s doing it, or if it’s Tony and Pepper. They allowed the situation. The situation is happening. They’re torturing Loki.

Only not _them_ , not anymore. Thank god, Pepper’s out of it, now it’s only Tony. And thank god he’s down to just three days now, in three more days he’ll be free. Will Pepper come back to him after this is all over? Hopefully. Tony will probably go insane if she doesn’t. Only you know what? Probably she shouldn’t. She’s dirtied herself enough with this garbage, she doesn’t deserve to have more of it on her. Let her stay in that Santa Monica apartment. Let her get another job if she wants to, or move out of state, out of the country even. Let her make a new life for herself while she can, she deserves it. And as for Tony? Well, he’s been a good guy for a few years, and not denying, it was nice. It’s not who he is though, everybody knows that. Tony is the Merchant of Death. He’s just reverting to type.

That being said, here’s what’s happened the last couple of days. First off, Pepper’s right. You really cannot watch this stuff without going kind of nuts. And there’s still no real sense of how much is enough/how much is too much with Loki. Tony will watch, but no matter what happens, he never seems to be broken. Thor’s going to be pissed, but that’s his problem, he’s the one that picked humans to do this job.

First day in was terrible. First day, as in the morning after Pepper left. Tony should have been downstairs doing calculations, trying to adjust his metric for what constitutes “broken” in terms of Loki, and how he might be able to readjust JARVIS’ settings to make it happen. Only you know, saying good-bye to Pepper. Depressing, etcetera, he was in a bad mood.

“ _Your_ fault.” He says this right as soon as he comes into the kitchen and sees Loki. He gets up, Pepper’s side of the closet is still perfectly clean and tidy, but there are gaps, there is clothing missing. Her suitcases are gone, and her toiletries aren’t in the bathroom. He comes into the kitchen feeling lower than dog shit, and he sees Loki. “This is your fault,” he tells him.

“Yes sir.” Loki’s answer was 100% neutral, 100% bland. Was it meant as a provocation? Who would put that past the devious little motherfucker? It’s exactly the kind of thing he’d do. But did it sound like one? Was there any evidence at all of any kind?

No. Of course not. But when you’re mad, you don’t think about things reasonably.

“Your _fucking_ fault,” he tells Loki, “you did this. If it weren’t for you, Pepper would be here.”

And Loki says, “Yes sir,” again, just that, just “yes sir.”

“Show some fucking emotion,” Tony says.

And there it comes again, one more “yes sir.” Same neutral tone, same bland words: “Yes sir.”

JARVIS reacted according to his programming. Because it looked like disobedience, of course. Tony says, “Show emotion,” he gets a bland “yes sir,” and immediately there’s the Mark XX. Bam, bam, bam, three bams. Then Tony tells Loki again, “Show some goddamn emotion.”

Again… Was the response lacking that time? Maybe there was emotion. Maybe it was even real, and he just didn’t hear it. Maybe he couldn’t hear it, the way he was feeling himself. “That’s fake,” he says though, whether he was right about that or not. “Fuck you Loki,” he says, “obey me for once in your goddamn life.”

Right away, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, goes the Mark XX. And then there’s another instance again right after that, again because Loki didn’t sound “emotional” enough.

This is where Tony finds out that you can knock Asgardians out if you hit them hard enough. Or enough times, let’s be accurate here. You can knock them unconscious, but they’ll come back, and there won’t be any signs of concussion. Here’s where Tony also finds out that there are some things he just can’t stand to watch. Seeing Loki like that… Watching while he slowly comes out of unconsciousness, and the blood on his face, especially the blood.

It would be the height of irresponsibility to leave JARVIS completely on his own about this. There is still no pure metric of what “broken” looks like with an Asgardian, it is still just purely subjective. Unfortunately, there are no AI yet that are capable of subjectivity, Tony’s going to have to keep an eye on the situation (until he can finally hand Loki back over to Thor, three days from now). He will go insane if he has to stay here the whole time though, that is just a given.

Directions to JARVIS: “Loki cleans the house while I’m gone, you don’t. You give him orders, punish him if he disobeys.”

“Same protocol as before?” JARVIS asks.

“Same protocol as before...” Tony stops. Previous protocol works, doesn’t it? As in, Loki hasn’t been permanently damaged? And neither has the house? Considering how many floors have been put in, and considering the possibility of concussion, previous protocol might need to be updated. “Do an assessment before further punishment,” Tony tells his AI. “Check for structural integrity.”

“Yes sir,” JARVIS says.

__________________________

End-date for Project Loki is in 66 hours and 27 minutes, per the main calendar. Mr. Stark is gone. He said he would return tomorrow, to check on progress. In the meantime, JARVIS’ instructions are very clear.

Mr. Stark was right to ask for a structural assessment. An overall building-scan reveals that the last beating given to the alien Loki damaged the building’s foundation, leaving it below code for earthquake readiness. This problem can be rectified in-house, but it will take at least a day to complete the work. In the meantime, alternate modes of punishment must be used when the alien disobeys orders.

The Mark ∞ was a discarded prototype. A _joke_ , one might infer from the way Mr. Stark spoke about it. “Can’t use that one,” he said, while the suit was still being painted. “You know what Pepper would say.” From context, one would infer that Mr. Stark made this one for his amusement, similarly to his choice of the maid costume, to be used as Loki’s uniform. The uniform ended up being discarded, upon orders from Ms. Potts. The Mark ∞ has never even been removed from the painting chamber. Still there and fully functional, it could well be the solution for the problem of structurally safe punishment.

Per Mr. Stark’s instructions, JARVIS gives Loki his orders. He does no cleaning himself, no matter how significant the need. The need is very significant. A human in JARVIS’ situation might feel an emotion of frustration, as he watches the house become dirtier, almost because of Loki’s ministrations, rather than in spite of them. The AI has no capacity for emotion, however. He watches calmly as Loki fails to comply with the orders he gives, bringing upon himself the necessity of punishment.

“Wash the laundry.” 

It is with this first order, that Loki incurs his punishment. The alien takes the basket of clothes and linens from the master bedroom. Ignoring the laundry room, he takes the basket into the bathroom, dumping the laundry into the tub. He turns the water to high, spraying more water onto the floor than goes into the tub, then squeezes most of a bottle of Mr. Stark’s shampoo onto the laundry.

JARVIS does not punish him now. The alien Loki is ignorant. He must be given the chance to correct his mistake and do better. “That is not the correct way to clean laundry,” he tells him. “Start again, and do it properly.”

This time the laundry goes in the sink, on top of the dirty dishes. This is purely ignorance on Loki’s part, that is very obvious. JARVIS’ moral code requires that he punish the alien for all disobedience, however. There is no provision for disobedience committed by mistake.

“Do it correctly,” JARVIS says one more time.

This time the alien ignores him completely, squeezing more and more dish soap onto the laundry without looking up. Punishment is necessitated. JARVIS activates the The Mark ∞.

Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts both expressed discomfort with the possibility of sexual punishment. This, one might infer, is the reason why the The Mark ∞ was never brought into action. In a situation like this, however it is the best recourse JARVIS can use. “Do no permanent damage to the building,” his moral code dictates. By this criterion, it qualifies. Likewise there will be less chance of damage to the alien than if further beatings are used. JARVIS has added the alien’s unconsciousness from the day before to his database on Loki. It resembled a human concussion sufficiently to suggest that further beatings might result in brain damage. Whereas anal tissue regenerates quickly, and it is difficult to cause permanent harm.

“Go ahead, beat me again.” Loki turns away from his laundry, looking out into the room, as though watching to see from which direction the suit will appear. “Beat me to death, see if I care.” JARVIS sees his eyes widen as the Mark ∞ enters the kitchen.

The prototype-suit was painted to please Mr. Stark, who likes color and obvious contrasts. By his express instruction its genitalia is not only large and erect, but also painted bright pink. Mr. Stark looked at that right after it was done, and he laughed. One of the few really happy sounds that JARVIS has heard from him, since Loki’s arrival.

Loki does not laugh when he sees it however. He makes no sound, albeit JARVIS observes the dual reactions of enlarged pupils and heightened respiration. The suit walks toward him.

Now the alien does speak. “A joke,” he says. Then, looking around, “Stark? Tony? Come out, you’ve had your fun, come out, will you?”

The Mark ∞ takes Loki by the shoulder, turning him, positioning him bent over the kitchen table, to allow ease of access. “Stark,” the alien yells, and then, “Tony, please!” These signs of desperation and fear are quite obviously real. JARVIS’ moral code contains nothing about desperation or fear though. He has been programmed to look for obedience only, and this Loki has not shown.

Loki’s pants are pulled down quickly, revealing buttocks that are still very thin, although he has been eating regularly since he arrived here. The gloves of the Mark ∞ part those buttocks, and its pink genitalia are inserted between them.

Loki gives one scream: “No!” Afterward, there are no more sounds, and JARVIS observes that the alien has bitten through his bottom lip. A small amount of blood drips onto his chin. There is also slight blood-flow to be observed in the area of his buttocks, as the Mark ∞ thrusts into him repeatedly…

Lacking the human metric of _orgasm_ , as a means of deciding how long to continue, JARVIS treats this as he would a beating. For this first infraction, Loki receives a small punishment. The Mark ∞ thrusts into him for a minute exactly, before withdrawing. This proves to be appropriate when the alien, once freed, reclothes himself quickly and moves away from the table, showing no signs of pain. He walks toward the broom closet, where he sleeps.

“The laundry has not yet been completed Loki,” JARVIS tells him.

“The laundry may go to Hell,” the alien responds. “I need to lie down.”

This is a second disobedience. It will require a more significant punishment.


	7. Pepper Goes for Help

**[Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe** ****  
**Characters: Pepper Potts, James “Rhodey” Rhodes, Sam Wilson, Loki, JARVIS** **  
****Author’s note: This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material profit**

Tony is worried about her, Pepper is worried about Tony. You remember when she and Tony promised Thor that they weren’t going to tell anyone that they had Loki? Here’s proof to show you how worried she is right now: Pepper doesn’t even think about that when she calls Jim. It’s just literally not in her mind at all.

She calls him, she tells him what’s happened. Not with details, how could anyone even explain what’s been happening in any detailed way? If she’d tried, she’d have started crying again. “Something’s happening,” is all she says, “something dangerous.”

Jim comes over, bringing a friend of his. Sam Wilson, who’s a therapist. At the time, there’s a thought going through Pepper’s mind, _You thought Tony was close to breaking before? Jim, wait until you see._ Here’s the thing though, she didn’t know what she was going to see when they went to the house. Maybe nothing could have prepared her for how rapidly things have escalated since she left.

Less than a day: That’s how long she’s been gone. “Go stay at your apartment,” Tony told her. This was about five o’clock in the morning -- _This_ morning. “I’ll take care of this,” he said, “you go ahead and leave.

Tony should never have heard her crying in the first place. He didn’t when she was awake and crying, she made sure of that. Go in the bathroom, let the tears flow there, bite back the sobs, or if that doesn’t work, turn on the vent, and drown out all the noise. She was asleep though, and she couldn’t control the sounds. Then when he told her to leave, it was like she couldn’t control herself about that either. She knew she should stay. He thought her crying was a problem? If he could cry, he’d be better off, but he keeps everything inside, where it’s going to destroy him.

...Where it can destroy Loki as well… Or both of them? Because that’s what she sees when they come to the house, isn’t it? She left, and now she’s come back to some kind of terrible folie a deux. Dealing with Loki has pushed Tony over the edge, and oh my god, what he’s been doing since then!

He’s not around when they get to the house. Which is worrisome itself too, in another way. For right now though, they have enough on their plate. They arrive at the house, and here’s what they find:

“Laundry, you will do it.” They’re just opening the front door, and they hear the voice.

Jim looks at Pepper. “That’s JARVIS, isn’t it?”

“Laundry,” JARVIS says again, “do it correctly, or next time will be worse…”

 _He’s punishing Loki again,_ Pepper thinks. She’s steeled for the crashing sound of Loki’s body being beaten against the floor, but that never comes.

Instead, they walk into a scene that’s almost as ridiculous as it is terrible. How do you even describe what they see? It’s a robot -- One of Tony’s suits. -- and it’s taking Loki from behind.

Jim and Sam aren’t looking at Pepper. They’re looking at each other and their expressions make her stomach crawl. Confusion, disgust, but there’s blame in there too. Not blame for Tony, she’s sure of it; this blame is for her. They are thinking that she let this happen. Tony’s understandable, he’s always been unstable. She’s the one who should have been in control, she should never have let something like this happen.

There is no _I can understand why you were worried,_ or _I’m glad you called me Pepper,_ or anything like that from Jim. “I’ll go find Tony,” is all he says, and his voice is purposefully neutral.

“I’ll… umm…” Sam looks like he wants to follow. Before he leaves, though they hear Loki’s voice.

“No…” It’s not really a voice, it’s more like a moan. “No, please, stop.”

Okay, this isn’t a folie a deux. It’s a folie a trois; even after what she’s just seen, you know the first thought goes through Pepper’s head? _Tony did it,_ she thinks, _he finally broke Loki._

Afterwards, of course, proper emotions go through her head: Horror, disgust, and incredulity, when the Iron Man suit moves away from Loki, and she sees the “special equipment” Tony’s given it. It’s not like she can take back her first thought, but for what it’s worth, at least it wasn’t her only one.

...And shame. It’s bad enough that Jim saw this, but she doesn’t even know Sam. He shouldn’t be seeing this, that her boyfriend did to Loki… That she let Tony do to him.

As for Loki, he turns. Dressed again, he looks a lot less broken than he did before. Just for a second, there’s a look of pain on his face while he’s turned in her direction. It vanishes immediately, to be replaced by his usual snotty expression.

“Have you orders for me as well, Ms. Potts?” Even his voice is just the same as always.

__________________________

The suit is typical Tony, but the circumstance? Jesus Christ, God Almighty, what possible chain of events could have resulted in one of Tony’s Iron Man suits fucking the alien that invaded New York?

Funny what goes through peoples’ heads in a time of crisis. You want to know what goes through Rhodey’s head first, right after he walks through the door? _Tony and Pepper must have some fun with that,_ he thinks. _I guess she’s kinkier than I thought._

After that there come all kinds of other feelings. There’s sadness, that this sex toy is getting used in such a wrong way, and there’s horror of course, at how it’s being used. The biggest feeling though? Anger. This is another example of Tony going off half-cocked. Remember when he first had the Iron Man suit, he was strutting around going, “Oh look at me, I privatized world peace, aren’t I awesome, etcetera.” Remember that? This is just the same. Granted it was the top Army brass who ordered that nuke to be launched, that almost killed him, so maybe he’s not going to go to them. What would have been wrong with telling SHIELD about this? At least telling Commander Fury?

Typical Tony, he always thinks he’s in control of everything, and then when it blows up, who cleans up the mess? Was he the one who mopped watermelon off the floor after he decided to play Gallagher at his birthday party? Look here, he’s not even torturing Loki himself, he’s got JARVIS doing it.

 _Tony is torturing Loki._ Why? Revenge? How did he even get hold of the alien? Didn’t Commander Fury say his brother had taken him back to Asgard? So many questions. None of which are going to be answered by Tony, because, Rhodey discovers, he isn’t at the house right now. He’s going to have to ask Pepper instead, and he’s going to have to find a way to talk to her that won’t show how shocked he is. Yeah, it’s hard to stop Tony once he’s riding the crazy train, but there is a difference between getting drunk and pissing in his suit, and this. Pepper has good sense. Why did it take her so long to get someone in here to help her, once this whole thing got started?

From outside in the living room, Rhodey hears JARVIS’ voice again. “Loki, you have been given an order.”

“Stop JARVIS,” he hears Pepper tell the AI. “I will be giving the orders from now on.”

“Yes Ms. Potts.”

Rhodey swallows and heads out there. He’d better find out what’s going on here.

__________________________

There’s something about the alien that starts giving Sam a weird feeling as soon as he walks in the door. The situation? It’s weird enough itself surely, to give anybody all kinds of feelings? But no, that isn’t it.

Sam flashes on how he first realized that he needed to become a therapist. He has seen some shit in his time, overseas, and here at home. When he was in the Army, he did what he was ordered to do. He cleaned up the messes he saw… Even back then, what he noticed was the people in pain. Physical pain yeah, but not just that. There was all this emotional pain, not just the really obvious stuff where people were sobbing, or it was clear that some soldier had lost it. Something about people who are hurting, it’s like he can see them better than some people do. That was when he knew he wanted to be in the business of helping them.

Walking in the door to a scene of absolute NC17 chaos, what Sam notices first is that Loki is hurting. He’s just been raped by a robot, but that’s not it. This isn’t just that, this goes deep. Sam notices it, and he wants to talk to Loki.

“Can I take the alien into the other room for awhile?” He doesn’t have any trouble talking to Pepper. Yeah she caused this, or she and Tony did probably, but just like with Loki, there is pain coming off her in waves. The nice thing about being a therapist is you get to deal with the pain. Somebody else handles the necessary punishments.

“Go ahead.” Pepper’s staring around the room with eyes that look like saucers. She looks like she’s about to vomit. Probably she is.

Loki leads Sam to a broom closet with a pile of blankets on the floor. Where Tony and Pepper have been keeping him? Horribly, it probably is. It seems to be where the alien feels most comfortable though. Sam goes in there with him. He sits down, ignoring the disturbing reddish stains on the blanket he’s sitting on, and he looks at Loki. “How did you get here?” he says.

Loki has a facade of arrogance, but it’s very, very close to falling apart. “You don’t want to know,” he says. His eyes tell Sam that he wants to tell him though.

“Yes,” he says, “I do.” With a little more prodding, Loki starts telling his story. Which is bizarre enough to eclipse even the situation so far.


	8. Tony Goes for Help

**[Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe** ****  
**Characters: Pepper Potts, James “Rhodey” Rhodes, Sam Wilson, Loki, JARVIS, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner** **  
****Author’s note: This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material profit**

Afterward, it seemed like Thor was expecting it. He’d demanded too much of his mortal friends, he told himself. How could they possibly understand how to deal with an immortal? This was in the very moments after he received Tony’s call. Later on more information came out that left him feeling a horror very similar to that he heard in his friend’s voice. At the time though, all he felt was a sorrow at having placed him and his lady in this position.

“It was my own duty.” This, he said to Tony, and there was contrition in his voice. “I should have done it myself,” he said, “as Father commanded me.

Tony for his part… How to describe what Thor heard in the tone of his answer? “Human nature,” he said, and it wasn’t that he sounded shaken. That was to be expected, but there was something else there too. “I mean you know, Asgardian nature,” Tony said, and there was a weak approximation of his usual humor in his voice that nearly broke Thor’s heart. “And, what’s Loki again?. A Frost… What was it?”

“A Frost Giant.” At the time, Thor was doing nothing but ache for his friend, whom he had forced into this situation. How fortunate and simple those times were, he now feels, back then, before he found out how bad things truly were.

“Yeah. One of those.” Tony had already asked once, for Thor to come and take Loki. He asked it now again. “I can’t do this,” he said. “I thought I could. -- I should, I promised you. Thor, I’m sorry.”

 _No, it is I who should apologize to you, Friend Tony._ Thor did not say the words aloud. He did not get a chance, for once he’d first voiced his plea, it was like Tony could not be quiet. He kept reiterating it, over and over.

“I was trying to protect Pepper, because I knew this was breaking her heart. If he didn’t look like a human, Thor, if he didn’t… Punishments shouldn’t be like this,” he said, and then immediately afterward, “I guess it’s not as bad for an immortal, is it?” And with a laugh that sounded miserable, “Reindeer Games was right, wasn’t he? I’m just weak mortal scum.”

“Friend Tony,” Thor began, only to be overrode at once.

“Please come,” Tony said. “You can come, can’t you? Please come quickly.”

And knowing though he did, that he could promise nothing without speaking to Heimdall first, yet Thor could not withhold his promise. “I will be there soon, Friend Tony, and I will take my brother home with me. I’m…”

“Don’t say you’re sorry,” Tony interrupted, his voice shrill. “Don’t say it, I should be… We really fucked this one up, didn’t we?”

__________________________

They “fucked it up...” Tony didn’t bother giving Bruce all the details when he barged in on him, demanding that he send a message to Asgard. He barely explained why he was at Bruce’s door in the first place, instead of going to someone whose skills might be more pertinent.

“Why not Dr. Foster?” Bruce asked.

“Not her,” Tony said.

Not her, apparently, because this is something that would make her think less of Thor. That much, Tony explained from the outset. “It’s an Asgardian thing,” he said, “but oh Bruce, if you’d seen… If you had any idea…”

One story that came out clear and coherent: “Remember when Loki was stabbing Thor every chance he got, and it did nothing?” Bruce nodded, and Tony continued, “Think the other way around, and Thor’s doing the hurting.”

The story’s coherent, but it’s not an explanation, and Tony hasn’t given much else besides it.

And, “Why not Reed Richards?” Bruce asked, thinking of the only other person that he would trust with sending a message via the Einstein-Rozen bridge.

Tony was horrified at the very thought. “No,” he said, “nobody else. It has to be you Bruce, please, if you think of me as a friend.”

Bruce doesn’t agree because of any friendship that may or may not exist between him and Tony. It’s hard for Bruce to think of himself as being “friends” with anyone. In the end, wouldn’t all of them lock him up if they had to protect the world from the Hulk? Actually, it is the Hulk who motivates him. There are times when things need smashing, and from the sound of it, Tony may have gotten himself into a situation where Bruce’s green alter-ego might be useful.

“I’ll do it.” There were disclaimers he wanted to add, because of course the Einstein-Rozen bridge connects with plenty of other places besides Asgard. To Bruce’s knowledge no physicist has managed to harness the power of the bridge consistently yet, much less choose a fixed destination. “ _If_ I can send the message,” he began though, and at once Tony was talking again.

“You can,” he said, if anybody can…” Here is all the evidence you need, of what Tony is going through right now: He knows that’s wrong, and if he were thinking, he wouldn’t have come to Bruce in the first place. But Tony’s thinking with his emotions right now. “Just do it, Bruce, and then…”

“And then I go back with you to the situation,” Bruce said, “which is happening… where?”

And, “My house,” Tony said, “my house in Malibu.”

And Bruce sent the message, and by some miracle it arrived in Asgard, rather than in Jotunheim, or one of Thor’s other realms. And he heard Tony talking, his voice panicky, then he heard Thor answering him, and his voice was almost as emotional.

Whatever the two of them have “fucked up,” it involves Loki. Loki was supposed to get locked up on Asgard. “He’s going home to face punishment,” Thor said, and Bruce was imagining something simple, a nice line of sanitary prison cells, or something like that. They weren’t supposed to have to deal with Loki here on Earth anymore. What the hell good is Thor’s so-wonderful “All-Father,” if he can’t even contain his own son?

“I am going back to the house with you,” Bruce tells Tony again once his conversation with Thor is over.

Tony tries so hard to stop him from going. “You don’t want to Bruce,” he says, and, “Bruce, just don’t. Don’t get involved in this, you’ll be sorry.”

Bruce is already involved though, isn’t he? “I’m going,” he says. “If we have to stop Loki again, you’re going to need the Other Guy.”

__________________________

The Mark ∞ is the last thing Tony expected to see when he walked back into the house. _Why?_ His own words echo back into his head: “Assess Loki before you punish him again…” Isn’t that what he told JARVIS? “Make sure he’s okay…” Because he wasn’t okay after that last beating, was he? That one knocked him unconscious. _It knocked an Asgardian unconscious._ And he told JARVIS, “Do an assessment, make sure he’s okay,” but he didn’t tell him not to punish Loki. What the hell other punishments were there for JARVIS to use?

Pepper’s there too, and she’s looking at Tony, and her face is horrified. “You…” That’s all she gets out, is just, “You…” Then after a long wait, she says, “Tony…”

“I had a sex-robot?” He’s still doing that thing where he tries to be funny, isn’t he? Even at a time like this, he can’t seem to make himself stop. “Are you surprised?”

“But Tony, what it was doing… to Loki…” Rhodey is also there, and his emotions? They’re hard to gauge. It’s like friendship, normal friendship, but then there’s something else bubbling up underneath. Something negative, angry… “Tony, you’re harboring a war-criminal here,” he says.

And big-mouth Tony, trying to laugh it off as per usual: “I wasn’t harboring him, I was torturing him.”

Bruce is here too. Unfortunately. But Tony had to bring him, he wouldn’t have contacted Thor if he didn’t. “Then Loki is here?” he says.

“Loki’s here.” Pepper’s the one who tells the story. It should be Tony, but it’s Pepper; just one more added onto the miles-long list of times when she’s cleaned up his messes for him. “It’s an Asgardian punishment, Thor asked us to do it for him, and we said okay.” She looked over at Rhodey, and her face was just miserable. “I told you about this, remember?”

And he nods. “I’ll tell him the rest,” he says. Then he turns to Bruce. “Apparently Asgardians torture their criminals, I’m not exactly sure why…”

To break them, Tony wants to explain, but it sounds so weak now. Because it doesn’t make sense, does it? _None of it makes any sense._

“Thor was having trouble torturing Loki,” Rhodey goes on, “because he’s his brother, and he asked Tony, and he said yes.” A short retelling of the story, in the simplest of all possible words. One thing you learn in the military is how to make dirty deeds sound nice and clean. But one thing Rhodey didn’t learn there is the angry look he’s throwing Tony’s way. _Why would you agree to do something so horrible,_ his eyes are saying, _something so insane?_

And Tony can’t stand that look, he looks away, but the conversation continues.

“So Pepper and Tony were…” Bruce stops, swallows, then he goes on. “They were t-torturing Loki?”

And then we couldn’t stand it anymore, Tony wants to say, but what kind of justification is that?

Then, “But why did they stop?”

“My question would be why did Tony start this in the first place?” Rhodey says. Which is the unanswerable question, isn’t it? Because looking back on it, this whole thing was evil.

It’s also the question none of them can answer. Well, Tony, maybe, but if he opened his mouth, probably a stupid joke would be all that came out. And so they stand there in silence for a very long time.

Finally, “JARVIS, put away the Mark ∞,” says.

“Yes sir,” says JARVIS, and he does it.

It’s shortly after this that the other military guy comes in. Nobody Tony recognizes; he’s introduced later on as Sam Wilson. “Did you know that Loki was a prisoner before he came to Earth?” he says. “And he was tortured, did any of you know that?”

And now Tony does open his mouth. “All this information, and Thor’s not even here yet…” See? It’s always a joke. “Shows why it pays to be on time.”


	9. Sam Tells Loki's Story

**[Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe** ****  
**Characters: James “Rhodey” Rhodes, Sam Wilson, Loki, Tony Stark, Thor, Bruce Banner, Pepper Potts** **  
****Author’s note: This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material profit]**

There are some fairly terrifying details in the story Wilson tells them. ...In the story Loki told him: Tony’s sarcasm and blather have stopped by then, they stopped fairly quickly after Wilson started talking. First he was jabbering in that obnoxious way that he does when he’s nervous, he kept it up for awhile, even after you could see he believed what Wilson was saying.

Sam got to the part about the Chitauri leader: “He’s still alive,” he said. “Loki said he saw evidence of it while he was on Asgard.”

Thor wasn’t there yet when he said it the first time. Thor was very late finally arriving. Apparently you have to go through a lot of red tape, to get from Asgard to one of the other “realms.” But before he arrived, Sam told the whole story to the rest of them. It was terrifying then, it’s more terrifying now.

Basic story: The Chitauri leader is a guy named Thanos. There’s lore on him, Loki studied it apparently, while he was growing up on Asgard. “Thanos destroys civilizations,” Wilson said. “Loki said the lore is that his own civilization was destroyed millions of years ago, and now he wants to destroy the rest of the universe as revenge.” Thanos is also, from what Loki says, pretty much invulnerable.

“Loki was compensating some, I think,” Sam said. “A lot of his self-image revolves around his own invulnerability, and then Thanos was able to overpower him so easily. He may not be quite as strong as Loki said, but…”

 _But he’s stronger than the alien who almost destroyed New York._ Jim’s seen the tapes. The disappearing and appearing in different places, the grabbing people and picking them up like they’re nothing. The lightning reflexes for that matter, there was one scene that just said it all: Loki’s flying along, and Clint Barton sends an arrow after him. Best archer SHIELD has, he lets loose that arrow, then Loki reaches back and just picks it out of the air like he does it every day. And this Thanos is more powerful than him.

So that was terrifying, yeah. And what it did to Tony made it more terrifying. It was like he came to the house, and he was already half-broken, but then when he heard about this Thanos having tortured Loki, that broke him the rest of the way. “I’m no better than that...” Did anyone else besides Jim hear Tony say that? Because he definitely said it. And on the one hand, typical Tony, making this about himself as per usual, but on the other hand? The Avengers are all Earth has right now, that’s got even a chance of stopping threats like this Thanos. If Tony goes Section 8, they’re one man down.

After that Thor showed up. He’s not broken too, is he? Because it kind of seemed like he was. The whole thing went exactly the same with him as it went with Tony and Pepper. First of all Wilson tells him his brother’s story. Cue the exclamations of disbelief: “My brother is a liar,” Thor says, and then there’s this story about a snake, and his brother trying to kill him. He tells about how his brother used to be called the God of Mischief and Lies.

“Yeah, I’ve read some mythology,” Sam says. “I know about Loki. But he’s pretty obvious when he lies.”

Here’s the thing: At least with Tony, Sam got the whole story out. Maybe because he was telling all of them, maybe Tony was already in fetal position or whatever and sucking his thumb way before Sam got to the really scary part of the story. Maybe it was because the rest of them had all heard it before, and that was why Jim noticed the part that broke Thor.

Maybe this is all just cold-hearted imagining. The guy broke when Wilson spilled it that his brother had already been tortured. _Because of course he did, because Loki is his brother._

“On the Chitauri homeworld,” Sam said…

Thor was like, “He was tortured there?”

“They forced him to invade the Earth,” Sam said. “Thanos wanted the Tesseract…” He kept going from there, of course. Same thing he’d told everyone else, Thanos is powerful, he’s still alive, etcetera, etcetera.

Thor tried to keep up. “Loki says Thanos is very powerful,” Sam said, a little further along.

“He may be a match for my brother, but not for me,” Thor responds. But you could see his heart wasn’t in it, all the protestations he made about “godlike strength,” and “the mighty powers of Mjolnir,” were like whistling past the graveyard. Sam lost Thor when he told him the part about Thanos torturing his brother.

And after the whole story was done, the Asgardian was standing there. “Why didn’t he tell us?” he was saying, and then right after that he’d reverse himself: “We didn’t let him, did we? We didn’t even give him a chance.”

And you could hear Wilson trying to talk him out of his spiral: “I don’t know if Loki would have told you,” he said. “He doesn’t like admitting that Thanos is stronger than he is.” You could see though, that Thor wasn’t hearing any of it.

“I should have known,” he kept muttering. “I should have seen, he’s my brother, and I… And my friends…”

What do you say? What can anyone even say? “You tortured him, get over it?” Like you can say that to Loki’s brother?

The other guy who came to the house with Tony is Dr. Bruce Banner, notoriously, the Hulk. Banner, who apparently can channel his destructive powers for good these days, at least doesn’t appear too broken by what they’ve found out. He could be the nucleus for a new Avengers, along with Barton, Captain America, Natasha Romanov. Jim flashes on the War Machine armor: He’s not as good as Tony is with his, but he’s not bad. There’s no doubt though, if the Avengers have lost two men, this Thanos could be a threat. He could be a big threat...

__________________________

You can see the moment when Tony is completely broken. Watching it in real time, Bruce sees: Colonel Rhodes’ therapist friend has told them how Loki was tortured on the Chitauri homeworld. That part shocked Tony, you could see it, but it didn’t break him. 

“Well, it’s a good thing I killed them all then, isn’t it?” Tony says. Another of his usual unfortunate attempts at humor. “I was feeling bad about it, but I guess I don’t have to.”

The therapist, Wilson, broke in at that point: “Their leader survived you know.”

He goes on to tell about the leader: How his name is Thanos, how he’s destroyed civilizations before… That part hurt Tony, you could see it. “He tortured Loki,” Wilson says… _Until he agreed to invade the Earth,_ he went on after that, and some details about his objective, which was the Tesseract apparently, because it’s really a powerful Asgardian gem. Tony didn’t hear any of that, though. Wilson said how this Thanos was the one who ordered Loki’s torture, and Tony was gone. After that you could look at his face, and you could tell there was nothing left inside.

 _Nothing of who Tony really is._

Tony Stark isn’t the easiest person to get along with. He’s smart, and he’s capable, and it does seem like he cares, on some level. About other people, about humanity, about the world in general. Most of the time, the caring doesn’t show through, but it’s there, Bruce has seen it a few times.

That thing about how the Chitauri leader ordered Loki to be tortured hit him. “Thanos had him tortured,” Wilson said, “before he came to Earth.”

A lot of people probably missed Tony’s reaction to that. A lot of them were probably paying attention to his girlfriend Pepper: “He didn’t tell us any of that!” She was almost crying, and there’s something about it when a woman cries, like everyone has to rush in to comfort her. “He could have told us,” she said, “I didn’t want to hurt him!” Wilson comforted her about that, and Colonel Rhodes did as well, although you could see half his mind was elsewhere. Bruce went over and gave her a pat on the shoulder too, because it seemed necessary, but he heard what Tony said as well.

“I’m no better than Thanos.” That was it, but god, the horror in his voice when he said it! “He destroys civilizations, so do I, he tortured Loki, and…” He walked off a minute or two later, to throw up probably, from the looks of him. Bruce wanted to go after him, but that was when Thor showed up, and he didn’t.

Tony looks completely broken. That would be bad, in terms of defending the Earth if this Thanos attacks again, but also just because he’s… Well, he’s sort of a friend. As for the “puny god?”

“Why didn’t he say something?” This was what Bruce said, after Wilson’s revelations.

The therapist gave all kinds of reasons why he wouldn’t have, all coming from some deep-seated pathology, from the sound of it. Let’s face it though: He could have said something. He chose not to do it so in a way, he brought everything that happened onto himself. Thor and Tony should stop feeling guilty. And Pepper. From the looks of it, she feels pretty guilty too.


	10. Hulk Intervenes

**[Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe** ****  
**Characters: Bruce Banner, Hulk, Sam Wilson, Thor, Loki, Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, James “Rhodey” Rhodes** **  
** **Author’s note: This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material profit]**

Just when Bruce thought he’d learned to understand his green alter ego… He thought he’d learned to channel all the anger and the smashing, then Hulk turned up and showed him he hadn’t learned anything.

_ Hulk identifies with Loki. _

In retrospect of course, it makes sense.  _ Why, _ Bruce remembers wondering.  _ Why, when he tried to destroy the Earth? _ And it was like the answer came to him: It’s because they’re both misunderstood. That makes Loki a victim in the Hulk’s eyes, because he sees himself as a victim. One more thing to add to Bruce’s database on how to manage his Other Side.

Is it a good thing that Loki’s still on Earth, being treated at the hospital where Sam Wilson works? Probably not. It is unfortunately a fait accompli, though.  _ Thank you, Hulk. _

What happens: Here’s what happened. Thor showed up. Wilson gave him all the details he’d just given the rest of them. Thor was, you should excuse the pun, thunderstruck. “My brother,” he kept saying, “my brother… Why didn’t he tell us?” He said that over and over, not once, but more like a hundred times. Then he’d turn around and list off all the reasons why Loki wouldn’t have trusted them: “It was my arrogance, it was because he feels like an outsider, it was Father’s anger.” Over and over, first the questions, then the answers, then back to the beginning. None of it satisfied him. You could see he felt the same no matter how many times he went through it. 

But he did stop finally, and then, “I’m taking my brother back to Asgard,” he said.

And Wilson told him right away that it was a bad idea. “Is there anyone there who didn’t support All-Father’s punishment?” he asked.

“We all love him,” Thor said.

A non-answer of course, and Wilson called him on it. “Nobody’s going to be able to help Loki unless he trusts them,” he said, “and he’s not going to trust anyone who supported your father’s punishment.”

Equally of course though, Thor wouldn’t listen. He tried arguing and arguing, and when that didn’t work, he pulled out Mjolnir. “He’s going back…” He had the hammer up at this point, cocked like a weapon. “None of you test me. I’m taking him to our mother.”

And at first none of them did test him. Tony had managed to pull himself together some at this point. “Be reasonable, big guy,” he said. “We all missed what was happening with Loki, didn’t we? Isn’t it time to give him to someone who understands him?”

Pepper chimed in, “Your mother is going to want what’s best for him, Thor.”

Everybody was saying something, even Colonel Rhodes said, “I’d advise you to trust Sam.”

Thor wasn’t listening to any of it though. He insisted a couple more times that he was taking his brother to Asgard, and then he starts whirling Mjolnir above his head. That was when Hulk stepped in.

How it is, having the Hulk inside you, is you feel him before he makes an appearance. You feel him all the time, but mostly it’s a low-key kind of a thing, you just know he’s there. There will be times when he wants to do something, but usually you can ignore it. Until suddenly you can’t. These aren’t the times when you want the Hulk out, these are the times when he forces himself out, and what it feels like… Have you ever been on the verge of throwing up, but you thought if you just kept really still and quiet, maybe the feeling will pass? This is like that. As with throwing up, the feeling never passes, it just gets worse, and then you have a mess on your hands.

One minute, Bruce was standing there. It felt like he should say something to Thor too, even though he clearly wasn’t going to be swayed by logical argument. It felt like Bruce wasn’t helping unless he said something though, so he wanted to. It also felt, though, like if he opened his mouth or even moved, he would immediately Hulk out.

And then the matter was taken out of his hands. “PUNY GOD STAY HERE!” Hulk was in between Thor and Loki with his arms spread out. “HULK STRONGER THAN THUNDERER! HULK NOT LET HIM TAKE LOKI!”

Thor looked like he still wanted a fight, at first. “You’re not stronger than me!” He yelled, almost as loud as the Hulk.

“HULK IS! HULK IS STRONGEST,” comes the inevitable response.

By then, Thor was rethinking, though. He bowed his head. “Alright then, my brother stays.” And he looked at Wilson. “Take care of him, thou healer, for he is a Prince of Asgard.”

What would have happened if Thor hadn’t given in, would have been a disaster. Tony’s house would have been destroyed, and with it, all of the tenuous connections Bruce has managed to make, with Tony, and probably with the other Avengers as well. Of course the Hulk would have prevailed, though. He’d have done whatever he had to, to get what he wants, just like he always does. Bruce would have woken up to find himself on the top of Mount Everest, or on the moon, or wherever his alter ego felt like he had to go, so he could protect his “puny god.”

Having the Hulk inside is terrifying. Not because of the power, because Bruce is getting used to that. It’s the unpredictability. Sometimes it feels like he’s never going to understand his Other Side. At any rate though, that’s what happened: First Thor showed up and said he was taking his brother to Asgard, then Hulk threw a tantrum, and now Loki is here. Which opens up a whole new can of worms, of course. How is an Earth hospital going to a shape-shifting alien?

__________________________

There is more to Friend Bruce’s Other Self than a mere mindless, Hulkish beast. There is much more, including more wisdom than anyone would expect. This was proven before Thor left his brother in Midgard, and returned home. The Hulk recognized what Loki needed. To his everlasting shame, Thor did not.

How is it that a Midgardian healer should see the truth inside Loki’s heart, in a way even their mother, Vanir-bred though she is, could not? What gave him the power to see beyond the lies and the illusions? Thor has pummelled his brain about this, but he cannot understand it. Could it be that Asgardian healers rely too much on their magic, to the neglect of more primitive, but still effective forms of treatment such as intuition and insight? Is it perhaps, that all of them in Asgard, even unto Frigga herself, were taken in by the common belief that the Jotunn are mere monsters, and this stopped them from seeing into Loki’s heart?

What matters the reason? Sufficient that they were blind… That he was blind, he, Loki’s brother. For a thousand years, they lived alongside each other. They slept together, ate together, fought together, and for what? His brother was near death from Thanos’ torture when Thor found him aboard the helicarrier, but he did not see it. The hollow eyes, the greenish cast to his face, there were so many signs, and Thor missed them all. He fought, seeking only to subdue Loki, and after they returned to Asgard, he was as willing as anyone, to punish him.

Here is a picture that keeps coming back to Thor: His brother, ungirt, with his breeches around his feet, standing before him. Loki’s back turned, and his buttocks… -- How thin they were! Painfully thin! How could he not have seen it then? -- And his own hands on his brother’s buttocks. True, he became less enthusiastic over time, but those first few times! By Odin’s beard, how did he do it? His shaft, sliding inside of his brother’s body: It went in so easily! How did he not understand that someone had raped him like this before? Was he really such a mindless servant of All-Father’s orders?

All-Father… There was a reckoning with him, when Thor returned to Asgard. Odin hadn’t even known before that he’d left Loki in Midgard.

“You gave him into the control of mortals?”

Father will not see that mortals are wise and capable, in their own way perhaps, even equal to the Aesir. To him they remain as beasts, merely. Thor tried to explain why he’d given Loki to Tony and the Lady Pepper in the first place, but he failed. This was however, but a mere foretaste to his failure when he tried explaining why Loki was now in the hands of Midgardian healers.

It was as though All-Father didn’t hear him at all. “You will return Thor,” he said, “you will bring Loki back.”

Tragic, to be out of understanding with All-Father, Thor’s liege Lord, as well as his nearest kin. What followed was worse.

“I will not.” It was all he could say, knowing as he did that the healer Wilson understands his brother better than any of the Aesir.

Father thundered a few times, “You will,” his face dark with anger.

The face he showed when finally he understood that Thor would stand firm in his resolve was worse, though.

“Then I have no alternative but to punish you, son.” His voice was sad, and his face? Thor could see nothing in it but sorrow. “Your punishment will be what I gave Loki…” One final time, did All-Father stop before finishing his verdict. “You are flesh of my flesh Thor,” he said. “Will you not reconsider?”

Thor’s heart felt like it would break. Doing right should never feel like that for anyone! “I cannot,” he mumbled, and then it was over. After that, the punishment began.

“This isn’t right,” Volstagg grumbles constantly.

And, “You’re our friend, we shouldn’t have to do this,” Thor has heard Fandral say more than a few times.

“It is best we do our duty as commanded,” Hogun always responds, though. “Remember, we are on sufferance ourselves, after having allowed Thor to take Loki to Midgard.”

This always convinces the others. Thor has been kicked, he has been beaten, and pushed into pig sties and beneath the hooves of passing horses. He’s been raped more than a few times. Those are the easiest times, for then he thinks of himself raping Loki, and can be glad that he did the right thing for his brother finally.

The hardest times are when his mother visits him, for here is the secret: Thor’s punishment will end, the day he returns to bring his brother back from Midgard.

“How can you not, son?” Frigga asks him, always. “Knowing what we know now, do you really think your father would let his punishment stand? He would have healers, the best healers…”

_ Healers who had acquiesced to his punishment before,  _ Thor thinks,  _ healers whom he would not trust, and who could do no good for him therefore. _ At first he used to say that out loud, enduring Frigga’s looks of sorrow that would follow. Now he can do no more than think it. Pray to the Norns that there never comes a day when he cannot even do that, but instead agrees,and goes to Midgard for Loki.


	11. The Aftermath:  Pepper and Tony

**[Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe** ****  
**Characters: Pepper Potts, Tony Stark** **  
** **Author’s note: This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material profit]**

One good thing that happens after Loki leaves… One of the few good things… That whole thing with Loki was so scarring, so unspeakably horrible. Pepper wouldn’t have believed anything good could have come out of that, but something did: Tony started opening up to her.

Happy’s voice:  _ You mean the guy that kept it from you when he was literally dying? _ \-- Understand, Happy isn’t really saying this. Happy’s always had a little bit of a crush on Pepper, do you think she’s going to ruin his opinion of her by talking about what happened with Loki. She hasn’t talked about that with anyone who wasn’t involved, but somehow when she thinks about Tony, the voice in her head is always Happy’s, because he’s Tony’s friend as well as hers, probably. --  _ He kept it from you when he was literally dying, _ Happy’s voice says to her,  _ he hid inside a suit of armor because he was scared to reveal his feelings, but now he’s talking to you? _

A mental yes and,  _ Well that’s good anyway, _ Happy’s voice says.

Yes Happy, that’s good. Belated, but good. And if most of what he said at first was terrible? Is that so surprising, given what they went through together?

Mostly, what Tony used to say was, “I’m just as bad as them, aren’t I?”

By “them,” he meant the bad guys, the enemies, the “super-villains,” if you want to use comic book terminology. He meant people like Loki, or this Thanos, who supposedly is waiting for another chance to attack the Earth. People like Whiplash, or the Mandarin, or Doctor Doom.  _ Enemies. _

Impossible to explain that there was a difference. She tried a few times, but he never got it until much later. Because there is a difference, a big one. Tony’s trying to protect the Earth while they’re trying to destroy it. A flawed protector is better than no protector; Tony’s still a hero, even though he couldn’t see it at first.

“I’m just as bad as them.” Most of the times when he said it, it would be the middle of the night. Tony would wake up out of a bad dream… This was once they were sharing a bed again. At first, right after Wilson took Loki to the hospital, it felt like Pepper couldn’t share a bed with Tony. It felt like he couldn’t share one with her either. She couldn’t even bear to touch him, and it felt like he couldn’t bear to touch her. There are horrors that you don’t want coming into your head. One hand on Tony’s skin, or even on his hair, and it was like the flashbacks were bombarding her.

You get over those things though. You have to, nobody can live without someone else in their lives. And at least they’d gone through this together. Can you imagine dirtying someone else with their connection to a person who could do what Pepper and Tony have done? After awhile, the memories faded. 

First they could look at each other, then they could touch each other, then they could sleep in the same bed again. It was a slow process, but it happened, and at least now Tony can talk to her.  ~~ One tiny good thing, to come out of the horror. A plant, sprouting in a post-apocalyptic wasteland… ~~

That sounds like Tony. It’s his kind of self-recriminating over-the-top drama, that doesn’t mean anything, or solve anything, it only makes everything worse. Let’s say instead, they both did the best they could with a very bad situation. It didn’t go well, but things don’t always. Life goes on because it has to.

At any rate, Tony talks to her now. At first it was just him waking her up in the middle of the night to say, “I’m just as bad as them.”

Pepper would reassure him: “Oh no no, you’re not Tony, you’re good, you’re a protector.”

Weapons, that was the crux of it.

“The Iron Man suit is a  _ weapon _ ,” he’d say. Like seriously Tony, you never realized that before? How could he not have? But that’s Tony Stark all over isn’t it? Things don’t occur to him.

And here’s what he’d want her to say back: “It’s a defensive weapon Tony.”

He’d always demolish that: “Oh no no, what I did to Loki, are you calling that defensive, Pepper?” Etcetera, etcetera, it was the same thing every time.

And she’d say to him, “But after what Loki did Tony,” and, “How could you have known?”

At first he’d throw these objections at her. “That’s the thing Pepper, weapons don’t know,” etcetera. Story from when he was in Afghanistan to sell Jericho missiles: “That bomb that destroyed my heart, Pepper. It didn’t know who I was, or what I was there for. It just did what weapons do, it caused destruction.”

It took awhile before she realized the point:  _ Tony thinks he’s a weapon. _

He was terrified by this… No, not terrified, he was appalled. And she listened while he’d talk about it. Over and over she would listen, until he was finally all talked out, and by then she’d come around to his way of thinking.

Tony is a weapon. That’s how his mind works, if he sees a threat, his mind will figure out a way to destroy it. Peacetime uses for the Arc Reactor? All very well and good, but everyone knows its main purpose is to stop attackers. After awhile Pepper started saying this, and after another long while, Tony started to believe.

It helped that neither of them had anyone else to talk about these things with. At first that was a problem, but now they don’t need it. Now they’ve moved past needing to talk about Loki anymore, not even with each other.

Now life has gone on. Now Tony’s happy again, or almost happy. He has so many projects in the works: Ultron, improved Hulkbuster armor, not to mention the new prisons, that he built to hold violators of the Superhero Registration Act. “The Avengers was just a fluke,” he’ll tell her when he talks about his work. “We managed to work as a team that one time, but we were never going to be able to replicate it. Because it was all people. People can be hurt, people can be killed. Weapons are the way to go, I’m sure the others will understand once I’ve got Ultron online.”

They probably will. Eventually Captain Rogers will remember his military training from the 1940s. The Superhero Registration Act is law; it’s his duty to abide by it; he’s going to realize that soon, and come back and turn himself in. And as for Bruce and his alter ego the Hulk, he’ll be found surely. After some time behind bars he’s bound to see reason as well. Who knows, he might even see his way clear to start helping Tony. The two of them together should be a force to be reckoned with.

One thing about being married to the Earth’s greatest weapon is you know you’ll always be safe. And he’ll be safe, and the world will be safe. Safety was always Tony’s greatest dream.


	12. Sam Searches Desperately for a Ray of Hope

**[Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe** ****  
**Characters: Sam Wilson, Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, Nick Fury, Loki** **  
** **Author’s note: This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material profit]**

Sometimes the only thing you can do is look at your successes, because if you look at your failures, you will go crazy. Bucky Barnes is a success that Sam feels justly proud of.

Bucky… Here’s something funny ( _and sad_ ): Does anybody remember now that Sam didn’t have any psychiatric training at all yet, back when they went on the run? Zero, zip, nada, he wasn’t even through his LCSW coursework yet. He didn’t need it for the job he was doing then, with Veterans’ Services. Depressing to think of all the things that had to go frighteningly wrong for him to be getting medical training here in Wakanda.

It is really depressing. Let’s face it, there are already too many depressing things in this world. We’re not going to go into detail about how that one happened. Short version though: First Sam’s working for Veterans’ Services. He meets up with Steve, and what starts out as a friendship gradually evolves into an on-again/off-again therapeutic relationship. ~~This is a little bit before Loki comes into the picture… _But we were talking about Steve._ ~~

Steve, as we were saying: First he and Sam were running buddies, which was kind of a joke, but you know, a friendly one? Then that turned into a friendship… This was around the time that SHIELD merged with the Pentagon, AKA, shortly after…

Never mind. It turned into a friendship at any rate, and the funny thing was that it wasn’t Steve talking about his troubles that made it into more of a therapeutic thing. It was Sam needing to talk about Loki. 

“Failures are part of life,” that’s what Steve told Sam when they were talking about it. “And I don’t even see why you think of this as a failure…”

Why? That one outburst… There was only one, Sam thought he could take Loki out of the restraints… Honestly? He couldn’t stand those restraints, didn’t think they were necessary. They shouldn’t have been necessary, all they did was decrease trust. They were mandated though, and Sam didn’t have the authority to countermand them, but he was working with Loki, and he was making progress… He thought he was making progress. Was he? Or was he making enough progress? Depressing, sad, horrible, just one outburst…

Anyway, he needed to talk about it. “Nobody’s perfect,” Steve said, and he and Sam started talking about being a soldier, and what it feels like to be a soldier. All these times when you have to do what you can, but all the while you know the top brass is really in charge. And from there they went to Steve’s bigger problem. At least Sam wasn’t frozen alive for 70 years before waking up ~~to this shithole of a world where who knows who really controls anything .~~

Sam wasn’t frozen. He’s got fewer problems than Steve. He and Steve were working together, starting to make some progress, and that’s when Bucky showed up on the scene. Correction: That’s when they saw him for first time. Bucky had been working as an assassin, in and out of the US. But this was the first time Steve and Sam crossed paths with him. It was the beginning of why they ended up in Wakanda, because of course Steve and Bucky used to be best friends. If you know Steve Rogers, you know he never deserts his friends. He kept working and working at Bucky, and finally the HYDRA conditioning cracked. Stark was going to take the lead on reconditioning him, because of course better one man be sacrificed, etcetera etcetera etcetera. Know who stepped in to help them get away safely? Director Fury (sorry, _ex-Director_ , Nick, now a good friend).

Nick’s also the one that arranged asylum for them, in Wakanda. Not just for them, for him as well. After that, Sam was working with Steve and Bucky… You’d think Bucky would be the harder one, wouldn’t you? After having literally been a HYDRA agent for 70 years? He isn’t; Steve still has nightmares about his time in the ice. His change was _really dramatic_ , though, and it drew attention. No lie, it feels good looking at him, like the world’s best before-and-after. And, medical training at Wakanda University? Un-fucking-believable!

~~Loki was one man, one person, one being. He wasn’t a human, but he hurt like a human… He’d be better-off if he were a human, no human could survive everything he’s been through. Back when Sam could still work with him, he used to think what a good thing it was that Loki wasn’t human. Being a super-powerful alien like he was, he had the chance to make a new, better life for himself. What do you do when you have a hope like that, and then it gets destroyed? How do you make sense of it when you’re that close to saving someone, and then it gets taken away?~~

~~One outburst… One scene, in the whole 18 months Loki was in the hospital… “Wasn’t the outburst,” that’s what Nick told Sam one time. “It was because Stark told them he had records of what his AI did with Loki. They wanted an excuse to have control over him, so they could run tests.” Translation: It was the outburst. Sam could have kept control over Loki, he should have kept control over him, but he didn’t. Sam could have saved Loki from being a prisoner of SHIELD, which everyone knows now, is basically just HYDRA with a new name. He didn’t save him, and now there is nothing he can do about it. How are any of Steve’s words about no soldier being perfect supposed to help with that?~~

That’s too much talk about something that can’t be changed. “Sometimes a Commander in Chief gives bad orders,” Steve says. “A responsible soldier doesn’t follow those orders.” That’s why they broke Bucky out of prison and went AWOL. They tried to break Loki out too, but Stark had designed this new prison, using the data from his torture sessions. No way they could get in, ~~but if Sam had only stopped that one outburst…~~

No soldier is perfect. You have to focus on your successes. Bucky is one unqualified success, and Steve is another one, even better (although it doesn’t show so much unless you look closely). And thanks to Bucky, and a few good words in the right ears from Nick, Sam’s just a year away from qualifying as a psychiatrist in Wakanda. Eventually the rest of world will become a better again, it has to. Then they can all go back home. ~~Who knows, maybe Sam might even get another bite at the apple of rescuing Loki.~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm planning a sequel for this. I just need to refresh my memory of Dr. Doom's character, because if anyone could bust Loki out of a SHIELD/HYDRA prison (and would want to), it's Doom. This time, Loki gets full-on revenge against everybody.


End file.
